CHURCH   HISTORY 

MEDIEVAL   AND   MODERN 


SEWANEE  THEOLOGICAL  LIBRARY 


GENERAL  EDITOR  — The  Rev.  Arthur  R.  Gray,  Edu- 
cational Secretary  of  The  Board  of  Missions ;  sometime 
Chaplain  of  the  University  of  the  South. 

THE  DOCTRINE  OF  THE  CHURCH,  by  the  Rt.  Rev. 
A.  C.  A.  Hall,  D.D.,  LL.D.,  Bishop  of  Vermont. 

"It  is  at  once  most  comprehensive  and  most  condensed;  and  its  dealing  with  some 
of  the  difficult  and  important  questions  of  our  time,  such  as  the  Resurrection,  the  In- 
carnation, and  especially  the  Atonement,  is  a  remarkable  piece  of  clear  theological 
statement  and  logical  argument." — Rt.  Rev.  W.  C.  Doane. 

THE  BOOK  OF  COMMON  PRAYER  (Second  Edition, 
Revised),  by  the  Very  Rev.  Samuel  Hart,  D.D.,  LL.D., 
Dean  of  Berkeley  Divinity  School. 

"It  is  admirably  adapted  to  the  uses  of  students  of  theology,  and  is,  beyond  com 
parison,  the  best  book  of  its  kind  for  the  reading  of  Churchmen  in  general." — Dr 
George   Hodges,  Dtan  of  the  Episcopal  Theological  School. 

APOLOGETICS,  by  the  General  Editor. 

"Distinctly  pragmatic,  but  also  thoroughly  theistic." — Dr.  W.  P.  DuBose. 

"This  volume  has  many  excellencies;  but  the  chief  of  them  is  its  masterly  exposure 
of  the  claims  of  Naturalism." — Princeton  Theological  Review. 

MANUAL  OF  EARLY  ECCLESIASTICAL  HISTORY 
TO  476  A.D.,  by  the  Very  Rev.  Chas.  L.  Wells,  Ph.D., 
Lecturer  in  History,  McGill  University,  Montreal ;  some- 
time Dean  of  Christ  Church  Cathedral,  New  Orleans. 

"  Compact,  clear,  and  admirably  arranged.  ...  A  boon  alike  to  men  preparing 
themselves  for  examination  and  to  the  general  reader." — The  Church  Times  (London). 

"Adapted  for  lay  use;  ....  the  layman  .  .  .  will  find  this  a  book  ...  fit  to  set 
him  on  the  way  towards  the  mastery  of  Church  History." — The  Expository  Times. 

CHURCH  HISTORY  ;  MEDIEVAL  AND  MODERN,  by 
the  Rev.  Wilson  Lloyd  Bevan,  Ph.D.,  Professor  of  His- 
tory and  Economics,  University  of  the  South. 

THE  OLD  TESTAMENT,  by  the  Rev.  Loring  W. 
Batten,  Ph.D.,  S.T.D.,  Professor  of  the  Literature  and 
Interpretation  of  the  Old  Testament,  General  Theological 
Seminary.     (In  preparation.) 

THE  NEW  TESTAMENT,  by  the  Rev.  William  H.  P. 
Hatch,  B.D.,  Ph.D.,  Adjunct  Professor  of  the  Literature 
and  Interpretation  of  the  New  Testament,  The  General 
Theological  Seminary.    (In  preparation.) 

ECCLESIASTICAL  POLITY,  by  the  Rev.  George  Wil- 
liam Douglas,  D.D.,  Canon  of  the  Cathedral  of  St.  John 
the  Divine,  New  York.     (In  preparation.) 

CHRISTIAN  ETHICS.     (To  be  arranged  for.) 

♦**  In  uniform  volumes^  12-mo.  cloth.,  printed  on  imported 
English  paper  ^  price  $i.jo  per  volume^  post  prepaid. 

THE  UNIVERSITY  PRESS   OF  SEWANEE  TENNESSEE 


SEW  A  NEE  THEOLOGICAL  LIBRARY  "  '  '  "^  1914 

CHURCH  HISTORY 

MEDIEVAL  AND  MODERN 


BY  ^ 

WILSON  LLOYD  BEVAN, 

LATE  GRADUATE  SCHOLAR  OF  THE  JOHNS  HOPKINS  UNIVERSITY  ; 

DOCTOR  OF  POLITICAL  SCIENCE,  MUNICH  ; 

PROFESSOR  OF  HISTORY,  UNIVERSITY  OF  THE  SOUTH. 


AT  THE  UNIVERSITY  OF  THE  SOUTH 
SEWANEE,  TENNESSEE 


Copyright,  1914 

By  The  University  Press  of 

Sewanee  Tennessee 


EDITOR'S  PREFACE 

THE  object  of  this  series  is  to  provide  for  the 
clergy  and  laity  of  the  Church  a  statement,  in 
convenient  form,  of  its  Doctrine,  Discipline  and 
Worship — as  well  as  to  meet  the  often  expressed  de- 
sire on  the  part  of  Examining  Chaplains  for  text- 
books which  they  could  recommend  to  candidates 
for  Holy  Orders. 

To  satisfy,  on  the  one  hand,  the  demand  of  general 
readers  among  the  clergy  and  laity,  the  books  have 
been  provided  with  numerous  references  to  larger 
works,  making  them  introductory  in  their  nature; 
and  on  the  other  hand,  to  make  them  valuable  for  use 
in  canonical  examinations,  they  have  been  arranged 
according  to  the  canons  of  the  Church  which  deal 
with  that  matter. 

It  is  the  earnest  hope  of  the  collaborators  in  this 
series  that  the  impartial  scholarship  and  unbiased  at- 
titude adopted  throughout  will  commend  themselves 
to  Churchmen  of  all  types,  and  that  the  books  will 
therefore  be  accorded  a  general  reception  and  adopted 
as  far  as  possible  as  a  norm  for  canonical  examina- 
tions.    The  need  of  such  a  norm  is  well  known  to  all. 

And  finally  a  word  to  Examining  Chaplains.  They 
will  find  that  the  volumes  are  so  arranged  that  it  will 


vi  EDITOR'S  PREFA  CE 

be  possible  to  adapt  them  to  all  kinds  of  students. 
The  actual  text  itself  should  be  taken  as  the  minimum 
of  requirement  from  the  candidate,  and  then,  by 
reference  on  their  part  to  the  bibliographies  at  the 
end  of  each  chapter,  they  can  increase  as  they  see  fit 
the  amount  of  learning  to  be  demanded  in  each  case. 
It  has  been  the  endeavor  of  the  editor  to  make  these 
bibliographies  so  comprehensive  that  Examining 
Chaplains  will  always  find  suitable  parallel  readings. 
If  in  any  way  the  general  public  will  be  by  this 
series  encouraged  to  study  the  position  of  the 
Church,  and  if  the  canonical  examinations  in  the 
different  dioceses  can  be  brought  into  greater  har- 
mony one  with  another,  our  object  will  be  accom- 
plished. 

Arthur  R.  Gray. 


PREFACE 

/IN  historical  handbook  constructed  on  rigid  lines 
^/jL  of  abridgment  can  only  be  useful  in  so  far  as  it 
suggests  topics  for  futher  study.  It  is  impossible  to 
acquire  a  great  deal  of  learning  from  a  handbook,  but 
even  a  handbook  in  which  events  must  be  presented  in 
a  very  limited  space  can  be  suggestive  if  it  avoids  the 
dead  level  of  merely  collocated  facts.  Critics  are 
rightly  skeptical  as  to  the  possibilities  of  making  any 
condensed  historical  narrative  interesting.  History 
only  becomes  alive  when  one  feels  the  impact  of  per- 
sonality, and  this  result  cannot  be  achieved  unless 
details  great  and  small  are  given.  An  historical  nar- 
rative without  details  has  as  little  stimulus  as  the 
resume  of  a  novel.  In  the  teaching  of  history  this 
must  be  brought  home  to  the  student  before  the  real 
value  of  historical  training  can  be  communicated. 

A  handbook  can,  however,  be  a  guide  to  reading 
and  to  study  and  it  may  also  offer  a  method  of  giving 
coherence  to  the]^results  of  wider  reading  and  study. 
One  of  the  best  examples  of  a  condensed  historical 
narrative  covering  a  long  period^of  time  is  to  be  found 
in  the  introduction  by^Samuel  Rawson  Gardiner  to 
a  bibliography  of  English  history  prepared  by  Pro- 
fessor J.  B.  Mullinger.     Professor  Gardiner  was  one 


P  REFA CE 


of  the  most  characteristic  examples  of  the  modern 
historical  scholar,  who  consciously  restricts  himself 
to  the  minute  investigation  of  a  limited  period.  Yet 
in  this  introduction  of  a  few  hundred  pages  he  showed 
no  timidtiy  in  interpreting  the  broad  outstanding 
tendencies,  changes  and  events  in  English  history 
from  the  Saxon  to  the  modern  period.  The  fact  that 
such  work  has  been  done  and  done  well  may  be  used 
as  an  encouragement  to  those  of  commonplace  calibre 
who  desire,  as  far  as  in  them  lies,  to  make  the  ex- 
perience of  the  past  accessible  in  a  convenient  and 
non-technical  form  to  the  men  and  women  of  the 
present  day. 

No  one  can  pretend  to  be  educated,  even  in  a  for- 
mal sense,  except  on  the  basis  of  an  acquaintance 
with  the  records  of  civilized  life  as  a  whole.  In  the 
history  of  western  Europe  especially  it  is  impossible 
to  isolate  church  history  from  secular  history.  One 
of  the  illusions  of  modern  sectarianism  has  made  this 
seem  not  only  possible,  but  desirable.  Church  his- 
tory is  a  description  of  many  of  the  most  important 
date  in  the  upward  progress  of  man  and  society,  and 
its  lessons  can  only  be  concealed  if  they  are  imparted 
under  a  sectarian  bias.  The  author  of  this  handbook 
has  attempted  to  avoid  such  a  bias  and  if,  in  many 
cases,  the  desire  to  escape  from  partisan  prejudice 
has  produced  an  atmosphere  of  aloofness  this  must  in 
no  way  be  taken  as  indicating  that  the  work  is  written 


P  REFA CE 


without  definite  presuppositions  or  even  some  cher- 
ished prejudices. 

In  the  preparation  of  the  bibliography  advantage 
has  been  taken  of  the  fact  of  the  current  publication 
of  the  Cambridge  Mediceval  History,  which  will  give 
to  the  English  reader  an  admirably  arranged  list  of 
works  covering  a  large  part  of  the  matter  dealt  with  in 
this  handbook.  In  preparing  his  own  bibliography 
the  writer  of  this  manual  has  felt,  therefore,  emanci- 
pated from  the  necessity  of  following  conventional 
lines.  Some  of  the  best-known  books  of  earlier  date 
are  omitted  simply  because  they  are  well  known. 
Others,  equally  well  known,  are  inserted  because  they 
are  strong  personal  favorites.  In  certain  cases  orig- 
inals have  been  inserted  with  the  hope  that  the  stu- 
dent may  be  induced  to  read  interesting  examples  of 
historic  writings  of  other  periods.  Many  of  the  titles 
in  the  bibliography  are  found  there  because  it  was 
desired  to  place  before  the  reader  some  of  the  most 
important  books  in  the  field  of  church  history  pro- 
duced within  the  last  four  or  five  years.  Here  again 
the  selective  process  has  been  largely  personal.  Sub- 
jects are  introduced  which  appear  to  offer  productive 
lines  of  research. 

In  the  preparation  of  the  text  itself  special  indebt- 
edness is  owed  to  Karl  Miiller,  E.  Troeltsch,  F.  X. 
Funk  and  Henry  Gee.  It  is  to  be  regretted  that  the 
sections  in  chapters  six  and  seven  on  the  Roman  Cath- 


P  REFA CE 


olic  Church  were  prepared  without  the  assistance  of 
the  second  edition  of  the  volume  on  Church  history 
in  Der  Kultur  der  Gegenwart,  in  which  there  is  an 
admirable  sketch  of  the  modern  Roman  Catholic 
Church  by  Professor  Ehrhard  of  Strassburg.  It  will 
be  noticed  in  the  bibliography  that  there  is  no  attempt 
made  to  include  the  subject  of  Spanish  ecclesiastical 
history.  A  special  bibliography  in  this  department 
would  be  eminently  useful.  Those  who  work  in 
Spanish  history  know  the  difficulty  of  following  up 
local  publications,  many  of  which  are  hard  to  trace 
outside  the  Spanish  peninsula.  Those  who  have  a 
mind  to  interest  themselves  in  Spanish  religious  his- 
tory can  do  no  better  by  way  of  introduction  than  to 
dip  into  the  pages  of  Florez'  "Espaiia  Sagrada"  and 
the  classical  work  of  Mariana.  They  are  certain  to 
be  amply  rewarded  for  their  pains. 

W.  L.  B. 


CONTENTS 


PAGE 


CHAPTER 

Introduction ^ 

I.  The  Church  After  the  Teutonic  Invasions  : 

The  Eastern  Churches 5 

Celtic  Christianity  and  Other  Western  Churches . .        8 

Gregory  the  Great lo 

The  Church  in  England U 

The  Church  and  the  New  Society 20 

The  New  Penitential  System 25 

The  Church  and  Education 28 

The  Advance  of  Islam 3° 

II.  The  Church  in  the  Carolingian  Empire: 

The  Genesis  of  Papal  Independence 3^ 

St.  Boniface 39 

The  Papacy  and  the  Franks 42 

Charles  the  Great  and  the  Church 45 

The  Papacy  and  the  Later  Carolingians 49 

Nicholas  1 5° 

Conflict  with  the  Eastern  Church 53 

The  Church  and  Feudalism 56 

Alfred  the  Great 5^ 

Doctrinal  Questions 59 

III.  The  Cluniac  Reform  and  the  Hildbrandine- 
Settlement : 

The  Genesis  of  the  Cluniac  Reform 62 

The  Growth  of  the  Reform  Movement 64 

The  Campaign  Against  Simony  and  Clerical  Mar- 
riage    66 

The  Champions  of  Reform  at  Rome 68 

The  Normans  and  the  Papacy 72 

Cluniac  Aims  and  Ideals 75 

Hildebrand  as  Pope 79 


CONTENTS 


The  New  Papal  Machinery  at  Work 8i 

The  Concordat  of  Worms 84 

Missionary  Expansion 88 

Growth  of  the  Oriental  Church 90 

The  First  Crusade 92 

Doctrinal  Development 94 

St.  Bernard  and  Monasticism 96 

Beginnings  of  Scholasticism 99 

The  Cluniac  Reform  and  Popular  ReHgion 103 

Heretical  Sects  105 

Canon  Law  and  Curial  Administration 108 

IV.  The  Hildebrandine  Papacy  at  Work: 

Arnold  of  Brescia 113 

The  Papacy  and  NationaHsm 115 

The  Church  in  England 117 

Church  Expansion 121 

The  Later  Crusades 122 

Innocent  III 125 

The  Eastern  Churches 130 

The  Separatist  Movements 132 

The  Cural  System 137 

The  Franciscans  and  Dominicans 139 

Indulgences  and  Confession 143 

The  Universities 146 

The  Mystics 149 

Frederick  II 151 

The  Inquisition 153 

The  Eastern  Question 155 

Anti-Papal  Movements 157 

V.  The  Decline  of  the  Hildebrandine  Papacy  : 

The  Papacy  and  the  French  Monarchy 162 

The  Hildebrandine  System  Attacked 166 

Papal  Finance 167 

The  Schism 170 

The  Conciliar  Movement 173 

WycHf 174 

Huss 177 

The  Council  of  Basel 178 


CONTENTS 


The  Renaissance  Papacy i8o 

The  Trend  Toward  Reform i8i 

Savonarola    and    Other    Reformers    Within  the 

Church 183 

Witchcraft 185 

Later  Scholasticism 186 

Humanism 188 

The  Christian  East 190 

The  Hussites  and  Other  Sects 192 

Julius  1 1  and  Leo  X 194 

VL  The  Period  of  Separation  and  Reform: 

Erasmus 197 

Luther 199 

Zwingli 216 

Calvin 219 

The  Anglican  Reformation 226 

Scotland  and  Ireland 247 

France 250 

Scandinavia 252 

The  Counter-Reformation 253 

The  Anabaptists 259 

Vn.  Divided  Christendom  in  Modern  Times: 

The  Anglican  Church 264 

The  Roman  Catholic  Church 278 

Calvinism 289 

Lutheranism 292 

Missionary  Expansion 295 

American  Christianity 299 

The  Eastern  Church 310 

Bibliography 320 

Index 335 


CHURCH   HISTORY 

MEDIEVAL   AND   MODERN 


INTRODUCTION 

FROM  the  earliest  period,  Greek  influence  pre- 
dominated within  the  Church;  its  authoritative 
writings  are  in  Greek,  and  it  secured  most  of  its  con- 
verts in  Greek-speaking  communities.  When  the 
Latin  element  began  to  emerge,  it  appeared  first  of 
all  in  the  form  of  literary  expression  and  intellectual 
method  both  closely  related  to  Greek  models.  What 
is  called  the  Hellenization  of  the  Church  may  be  said 
to  have  been  practically  completed  with  the  age  of  the 
great  patristic  writers.  Roughly  speaking,  the  Latin- 
ization  of  the  Church  begins  after  the  age  of  the 
Fathers.  As  it  stands  especially  for  the  introduction 
of  Roman  principles  of  law  and  government,  Latiniza- 
tion  must  be  regarded  as  a  complement  to  Helleniza- 
tion, and  not  as  a  super-session  of  the  varied  cultural 
elements  absorbed  by  the  Church  from  the  Greek 
world.  The  papacy  grew  to  be  an  institution  which 
represented  the  climax  of  Latin  influence.  All  the  va- 
rious tendencies  leading  to  a  primacy  resting  on  secu- 
lar analogies  and  influenced  by  reverence  for  apostolic 
foundation  are  clearly  outlined  by  Professor  C.  H. 
Turner  in  his  chapter  on  **The  Organization  of  the 


MEDIEVAL  CHURCH  HISTORY 


Church",  in  the  Cambridge  Mediaeval  History  (Vol. 
I),  but  these  could  not  have  culminated  in  the  actual- 
ized papac}'  unless  the  Church  had  taken  over  from 
the  Empire  the  ideals  of  Roman  law,  administration, 
and  government.  The  development  was  furthered  by 
the  destruction  of  the  Empire  in  its  western  pro- 
vinces. Rome  itself,  in  its  ecclesiastical  position, 
came  to  supply  a  place  which  the  Roman  civil 
government  had  lost  when  its  provinces  fell  into  the 
hands  of  the  Germanic  invaders,  who  ruled  over 
them  as  masters,  but  made  no  attempt,  except  in 
Britain,  to  destroy  the  provincial  populations,  trained 
to  revere  the  power  of  Rome. 

The  pontificate  of  Siricius  (384-399)  is  especially 
important  in  the  constitutional  history  of  the  papacy. 
He  worked  strenuously  for  the  recognition  of  claims  of 
oversight  asserted  by  the  Roman  See,  and  exercised 
the  right  of  judicial  appeal  throughout  the  Western 
Church.  In  the  Church  of  North  Africa  not  much 
success  was  achieved.  Siricius'  plan  was  so  directed 
as  not  to  cause  opposition  from  strongly  organized 
local  churches,  but  rather  to  bringing  the  weaker 
churches  of  Gaul  and  Spain  directly  under  Roman 
supervision.  In  the  same  spirit,  Milan's  sphere  of 
influence  was  exempt  from  interference,  but  after 
that  city  ceased  to  be  the  residence  of  the  imperial 
court,  it  was  not  difficult  for  the  bishops  of  Rome  to 
limit  the  ecclesiastical  sway  of  Milan  to  the  southern 
side  of  the  Alps,  and  to  encourage  the  independence 
in  Italy,  of  Aquileia,  and  Ravenna,  the  new  imperial 


INTRODUCTION 


capital.  Zosimus  (417-418)  established  Aries  in 
southern  Gaul  as  the  seat  of  a  Roman  vicariate,  by 
which  the  bishop  of  this  see  as  representing  Rome 
was  given  primatial  rights  over  the  whole  Gallic 
Church,  and  at  the  same  time  the  Roman  See  took 
over  the  rule  of  supreme  arbiter  in  all  important 
canonical  questions.  Although  the  structure  did 
not  last  long,  owing  to  political  changes,  the  method 
adopted  by  the  papacy,  of  making  the  Western 
Churches  its  dependants,  was  most  significant  of 
the  future  development. 

The  position  claimed  for  himself  by  Leo  I  (440- 
461)  implied  guardianship  and  oversight,  not  super- 
session, of  the  ordinary  constitutional  machinery  of 
the  Church.  He  strove  to  be  an  inspector-general 
rather  than  a  dictator  of  the  type  realized  in  the 
mediaeval  papacy.  His  interest  lay  in  the  mainte- 
nance of  existing  canonical  rule  of,  and  so  far  as  the 
Western  Church  was  concerned,  his  activity  in 
coordinating  dioceses  and  provinces  under  the 
direction  of  the  Roman  See  as  the  court  of  supreme 
appeal,  was  accepted  as  a  natural  and  regular  outcome 
of  the  Roman  primacy.  Only  Milan  remained  free. 
The  connection  with  Rome  was  the  more  valued 
because  when  the  Roman  provincial  system  was  shat- 
tered in  the  western  parts  of  the  Empire,  protection 
against  the  Germanic  invaders  who  were,  when  not 
pagans,  Arian  Christians,  could  best  be  secured  by 
association  with  Rome. 

In  513,  under  Symmachus,  began  the  custom  of  con- 


MEDIEVAL  CHURCH  HISTORY 


ferring  the  pallium,  a  decorative  neck  vesture,  used 
previously  in  the  West  only  by  the  Roman  bishop, 
v^hich  was  now  bestowed  by  him,  as  a  symbol  of 
dependence,  on  those  prelates  who  had  distinguished 
themselves  as  defenders  or  upholders  of  the  pro- 
gramme inaugurated  from  Rome.  In  the  East  the 
situation  was  different:  the  exercise  there  of  special 
privileges  by  Rome  was  never  anything  more  than 
temporary.  Felix,  purposing  to  discipline  the  patri- 
arch Accacius  for  claiming  to  exercise  the  primatial 
rights  accorded  to  Constantinople  by  the  Council  of 
Chalcedon,  summoned  him  to  Rome.  Of  course  the 
summons  was  refused  (484),  and  for  the  next  thirty- 
five  years  communion  was  broken  off  between  the 
two  sees.  The  Oriental  Church  was  controlled  by 
the  emperor  through  his  nominee,  the  patriarch,  as 
administrator;  in  the  West,  the  apex  of  the  church 
system  was  the  Roman  bishop.  But  the  full  status 
of  independence  was  not  yet  attained,  for  Theodoric 
the  Ostrogoth  did  not  hesitate  to  depose  John  I  and 
nominate  his  successor  (491),  when  it  was  found  that 
the  pope  was  intriguing  for  the  restoration  of  im- 
perial rule  in  Italy. 


CHAPTER  I. 

THE  CHURCH  AFTER  THE  TEUTONIC 
INVASIONS 

The  Eastern  Churches 

THE  first  half  of  the  sixth  century  in  the  East 
was  marked  by  disputes  arising  over  the 
Chalcedonian  decrees.  Theological  dissensions  were 
combined  frequently  with  political  and  racial  dif- 
ferences, for  religious  protests  were  often  found  the 
most  effective  method  of  attacking  Byzantine  autoc- 
racy. When  Justinian  (527-565)  came  to  the  throne 
he  set  out  to  re-conquer  the  lost  western  provinces. 
To  accomplish  this  task  cooperation  with  Rome  and 
the  Western  Church  was  necessary,  and  their  help 
could  only  be  secured  by  repressing  Monophysite  in- 
fluences in  the  East.  As  a  basis  of  concord,  the 
formula — *'One  of  the  Holy  Trinity  has  suffered  in 
the  flesh" — was  proposed.  Justinian  proceeded  to 
enforce  its  acceptance.  A  further  move  to  stop 
agitation  and  support  the  party  of  compromise  may  be 
seen  in  the  formal  condemnation  of  Origen  as  a 
teacher  (543),  and  in  the  judgment  passed  on  the  three 
leading  representatives  of  the  Antiochan  School, 
Theodore  of  Mopsuestia,  Theodoret,  and  Ibas.  This 
sentence,  which  decided  the  so-called  Three  Chapters 
Controversy,  was  most  vigorously  resisted  in  the 
newly  restored  western  provinces, — Africa  and  Italy. 


MEDIEVAL  CHURCH  HISTORY 


Vigilius,  who  had  previously  secured  the  promise 
of  the  succession  to  the  Roman  See  from  the  Empress 
Theodora  on  condition  that  he  would  help  the  Mo- 
nophysite  party  by  reversing  the  decrees  of  Chalcedon, 
was  now  pope  (545).  Silverius  had  been  deposed 
and  Vigilius  found  himself  obliged  to  fulfil  his  part  of 
an  unsavory  contract.  He  first  conformed  to  the  im- 
perial decision  regarding  the  Three  Chapters,  but 
afterwards  withdrew  his  approval  when  the  Fifth 
General  Council  at  Constantinople  (553)  adopted  the 
condemnation  of  the  Three  Chapters.  His  succes- 
sor, Pelagius  (555),  proved  a  more  reliable  instrument 
of  imperial  policy,  and  he  carried  with  him  the  local 
Roman  province  in  his  anti-Chalcedonian  attitude. 
But  northern  Italy,  Illyria  and  Africa  refused  to 
follow,  an  act  which  led  to  a  schism  of  considerable 
duration  in  the  first  two  regions.  In  the  East  the 
Monophysites  were  far  from  satisfied  with  Justinian's 
concessions,  and  there  arose  in  connection  with 
this  subtle  thoelogical  speculation  national  move- 
ments of  protest  within  the  bounds  of  the  Empire 
that  ended  in  the  formation  of  permanent  religious 
communions,  all  of  which  rejected  the  decrees  of 
Chalcedon.  In  Egypt  the  separatist  Monophysite 
organization  was  known  as  Coptic,  in  Syria  it  was 
called  Jacobite,  because  of  its  founder  Jacob  Baradai, 
who  in  the  last  half  of  the  sixth  century  showed 
remarkable  organizing  power  in  drawing  together  the 
eastern  Monophysites  into  a  compact  body.  One 
effect  of  the  repression  of  Monophysitism  was  to  send 


AFTER  THE  TEUTONIC  INVASIONS  7 

its  partisans  out  past  the  confines  of  the  Empire, 
where  they  frequently  became  promoters  of  dissident 
organizations  of  a  vigorous  missionary  type.  To 
them  is  owed  the  foundation  of  the  existing  Church 
in  Abyssinia.  In  Armenia,  after  some  vacillation, 
the  Church,  owing  to  its  jealousy  of  Greek  influence, 
accepted  the  Monophysite  position  and  parted  from 
the  Eastern  Church  in  651. 

Justinian's  own  management  of  ecclesiastical  affairs 
was  thoroughly  autocratic.  His  ideal  was  centraliza- 
tion, which  meant  the  concentration  under  his  control 
of  all  the  machinery  of  church  discipline  and  govern- 
ment. The  canons  became  a  part  of  the  imperial 
law,  and  on  the  other  hand  the  bishops  were  entrusted 
with  civil  functions  that  gave  them  oversight  of  the 
execution  of  laws  affecting  morals,  treatment  of  the 
poor  and  unfortunate,  and  cases  of  maladministration. 
Bishops  as  well  as  all  the  members  of  the  civil  service 
were  but  parts  of  a  great  bureaucratic  system  of 
which  the  emperor  was  the  head  and  actual  director. 
Justinian's  purpose  to  establish  a  doctrinal  uniformity 
to  harmonize  with  his  regulated  system  of  church 
government  under  state  supervision  was  successful 
only  outwardly.  It  is  noteworthy  that  during  this 
period  a  favorable  reception  was  given  to  the  work  of 
an  unknown  mystical  writer,  who,  using  the  name  of 
Dionysius  the  Areopagite  (Acts  17:34),  contrived  to 
give  apostolic  authority  to  a  collection  filled  with  neo- 
platonic  conceptions,  and  plainly  modelled  after  the 
teaching  of  Origen  that  had  recently  been  officially 


MEDIEVAL  CHURCH  HISTORY 


condemned.  Circulating  first  among  Monophysites, 
the  writings  of  this  pseudo-Dionysius,  because  of 
their  claim  to  an  early  origin,  came  to  have  a  potent 
influence  on  the  development  of  ascetic  religion 
throughout  the  Christian  world. 

Cletic  Christianity  and  Other  Western 
Churches 

One  of  the  most  interesting  and  unexpected  exam- 
ples of  church  expansion  in  this  period  is  found 
in  the  conversion  of  the  distant  regions  of  Britain 
and  Ireland,  where  the  isolation  brought  about  by 
the  Teutonic  invasions  introduced  a  church  organ- 
ization with  peculiar  racial  characteristics.  City 
and  town  life  seemed  to  have  disappeared  when 
the  Roman  provincial  system  was  destroyed;  the 
Church  soon  became  modelled  in  harmony  with 
the  tribal  influences  of  Celtic  society.  From 
Britain,  St.  Patrick  went  forth  before  432  to  under- 
take the  conversion  of  the  Irish  tribes.  Earnest 
as  his  apostolate  was,  the  full  results  of  his  labor 
were  not  visible  until  the  middle  of  the  sixteenth 
century.  In  Ireland  in  each  small  local  tribal  division 
the  central  organ  of  church  life  was  the  monastery, 
not  the  cathedral;  administration  was  in  the  hands  of 
the  abbot,  not  the  bishop.  There  were  no  parochial 
boundaries,  and  the  ordinary  diocesan  regulations  were 
not  imposed  upon  the  members  of  a  monastery. 
Their  cure  of  souls  was  general  and  not  localized; 
and  as  parochial  work  was  subordinated  to  ascetic 


AFTER  THE  TEUTONIC  INVASIONS  9 

ideals,  many  cast  aside  all  local  attachments  and  spent 
their  lives  in  distant  lands  as  pilgrims  or  hermits,  and 
carried  with  them  the  individualistic  tendencies  of 
their  native  land  to  France,  Italy,  and  even  to  Egypt 
and  Syria.  One  great  achievement  of  the  Irish 
Church  was  the  extension  of  Christianity  through  St. 
Columba  among  the  savage  Picts;  here  the  centre  on 
which  all  mission  posts  depended  was  the  Island  of 
lona,  whose  head,  the  presbyter  abbot,  controlled  the 
Church  in  northeast  Ireland,  and  west  Scotland.  The 
peculiarities  of  the  Irish  Church  preserved  the  more 
elastic  provincial  autonomy  that  existed  everywhere 
before  the  beginning  of  the  fifth  century.  In  relation 
to  the  Roman  See,  Celtic  Christianity  was  rather  the 
result  of  isolation  than  of  protest.  Their  monasteries 
practised  an  almost  extravagant  asceticism  that  ap- 
pealed to  the  emotional  peculiarities  of  the  race;  and 
most  noteworthy  was  the  zeal  of  the  monks  in  pre- 
serving the  sound  traditions  of  classical  culture  and 
developing  a  strikingly  original  artistic  style. 

In  the  rest  of  western  Europe  the  period  from  the 
close  of  the  fifth  to  the  middle  of  the  sixth  century 
was  marked  by  the  downfall  of  Arian  Christianity 
among  the  Teutonic  peoples.  This  was  partly  due, 
as  in  the  case  of  North  Africa,  to  the  imperial  resto- 
ration under  Justinian ;  in  Spain  to  the  political  acu- 
men of  Reccared  (586-601),  who  saw  in  the  conversion 
of  his  people  a  means  of  reconciling  the  Roman  provin- 
cials to  Germanic  domination.  But  much  of  the  credit 
for  the  transformation  must  be  given  to  the  Franks, 


10  MEDIyEVAL  CHURCH  HISTORY 

whose  king  (Clovis,  466-511),  after  giving  up  pagan- 
ism, set  out  on  his  career  of  conquest  as  the  champion 
of  orthodox  Christianity.  In  Spain  the  Church  took 
on  a  strongly  national  character,  and  its  synods  be- 
came legislative  bodies  whose  acts  regulated  without 
distinction  the  affairs  of  both  Church  and  State. 
Among  the  Franks,  the  Church  became  also  closely 
related  to  the  State,  but  in  a  place  of  dependence,  not 
on  an  equal  footing  as  in  Spain.  The  adoption  of 
Christianity  by  the  Franks  was  characterized  by  great 
activity  in  monastic  life  and  by  the  endowment  of 
churches,  but  this  external  success  was  accompanied 
by  a  period  of  rough  outlawry  where  every  moral 
principle  was  violated.  Hopeless  as  it  seemed  to 
stem  the  tide  of  this  moral  degeneracy,  a  widespread 
reform  movement  was  led  by  Columbanus,  an  Irish 
monk,  through  his  monastic  foundation  at  Luxeuil  in 
Burgundy,  where  work  was  done  along  purely  Irish 
lines,  without  regard  to  existing  diocesan  organi- 
zations (543-615)- 

Gregory  the  Great 

The  establishment  of  the  Lombard  Kingdom  in 
Italy  in  568  brought  about  territorial  changes  which 
so  altered  the  whole  administrative  order  introduced 
by  Justinian's  conquests  that  his  ecclesiastical  system, 
which  was  a  part  of  it,  did  not  survive.  In  Byzantine 
Italy,  which  included  the  islands,  parts  of  the  coast  of 
the  peninsula,  and  its  entire  southern  extremity,  the 
Justinian  policy  of  making  the  bishops  a  part  of  the 


AFTER  THE  TEUTONIC  INVASIONS  11 

machinery  of  the  State  continued.  Where  the  Lom- 
bards ruled  there  was  no  such  regulation;  all  that 
was  saved  from  the  ruin  of  the  conquest  was  the  per- 
mission to  practise  the  orthodox  faith.  There  was  an 
end  of  the  carefully  ordered  system  of  Byzantine  rule, 
for  the  bishops  were  shorn  of  all  prerogatives  but 
their  pastoral  relation  to  their  flocks,  and  because  they 
were  now  without  rivals  their  influence  was  much  en- 
hanced both  among  the  conquerors  and  the  conquered. 
No  one  gained  more  from  the  change  than  the  Bishop 
of  Rome.  After  the  time  of  Vigilius,  his  three  suc- 
cessors were  named  by  Justinian,  and  later,  after  a 
vacancy,  the  choice  of  the  electors  had  to  be  assented 
to  by  the  sovereign  at  Constantinople. 

It  was  this  State  interference  which  the  troubled 
affairs  of  Italy  broke  up;  and  just  at  a  time  when  in- 
itiative was  needed  to  guide  the  Roman  See  along  un- 
foreseen ways  and  in  hazardous  conditions,  a  man 
appeared  fully  equal  to  the  task.  Gregory  the  Great's 
family  was  of  senatorial  dignity,  and  from  his  youth 
the  future  pope  was  brought  up  with  a  view  to  a 
career  in  the  imperial  administration.  Turning  away 
from  this  prospect,  Gregory  entered  a  monastery,  be- 
came familiar  with  the  details  of  ecclesiastical  polity 
at  its  chief  centre,  and  also  acquired  a  wider  experi- 
ence as  official  representative  of  the  papal  see  at 
Constantinople.  On  his  election  in  590,  Gregory  was 
thoroughly  prepared;  he  showed  the  characteristic 
traits  of  Roman  statecraft — industry  and  consistency. 
The  claims  of   his  predecessors  were  explicitly  re- 


12  MEDIEVAL  CHURCH  HISTORY 

newed  on  every  occasion.  But  the  material  basis  of 
the  claims  was  shrewdly  recognized.  Much  of  the 
pope's  attention  was  given  to  the  direction  of  the 
great  landed  estates  owned  by  the  Roman  See  in  Italy, 
Sicily,  Africa  and  even  in  the  remote  provinces  of 
the  East. 

All  the  skill  of  a  landlord,  bent  on  improving  and 
managing  his  property,  was  exerted  in  subservience 
to  a  far-sighted  plan  to  make  the  Roman  Church  in- 
dependent financially,  and  so  enable  it  to  exert  a 
potent  influence  over  men  and  affairs.  The  custom 
of  sending  the  pallium,  not  originally  a  mark  of  ec- 
clesiastical precedence,  was  vigorously  pressed  into 
service  by  the  pope,  and  so  emphasized  that  Gregory's 
regulation  was  accepted  that  only  a  bishop  so  dignified 
by  the  See  of  Rome  could  proceed  to  consecrate  an- 
other bishop. 

The  Church  of  Milan,  which  had  suffered  much 
from  the  Lombard  conquest,  was  glad  to  be  restored 
to  communion  with  Rome,  and  so  find  a  powerful 
protection  respected  by  the  Lombard  kings  them- 
selves. The  pope's  experienced  diplomatic  hand  was 
seen  especially  in  his  relations  with  the  heads  of  the 
Teutonic  peoples.  Reccared's  conversion  from  Arian- 
ism  was  made  use  of  to  place  on  a  firmer  foundation 
the  relations  with  the  Church  in  Spain.  With  the 
Prankish  monarchs  every  opportunity  was  used  to 
assert  in  an  effective  shape  the  control  over  the 
French  clergy  and  bishops, and  the  pope  showed  a  clear- 
sighted understanding  of  the  intricacies  of  Merovin- 


AFTER  THE  TEUTONIC  INVASIONS  13 


gian  politics,— the  despair  to-day  of  every  student  of 
history.  Gregory  selected  Brunhilde,  the  unscrupulous 
queen,  whose  life  was  stained  with  almost  every  crime, 
as  the  most  fit  instrument,  because  she  was  the  most 
powerful  of  the  Merovingian  rulers,  to  bring  into  effect 
the  designs  of  papal  policy.  With  Africa,  the  pope's 
efforts  were  unsuccessful,  because  the  overthrow  of 
Vandal  power  had,  by  freeing  the  African  Church 
from  its  environment  of  persecution,  revived  its 
old  self-conscious  independence.  In  Illyricum,  Jus- 
tinian had  placed  its  southern  episcopal  sees  under  the 
supervision  of  the  Constantinopolitan  patriarchate. 
This  arrangement  Gregory  could  not  overthrow, 
though  from  time  to  time  he  succeeded  in  extending 
over  it  the  authority  of  the  Roman  See. 

In  Italy  the  activity  of  the  pope  produced  im- 
mediate and  important  results,  largely  through  the 
influence  of  the  officials  who  were  charged  by  him 
with  the  supervision  of  the  patrimonial  estates  of  the 
Roman  Church.  These  officers,  who  were  taken  ex- 
clusively from  the  clergy,  effectively  supervised  the 
acts  of  the  bishops  under  the  immediate  metropolitan 
jurisdiction  of  Rome;  and  as  throughout  all  the  terri- 
tory still  belonging  to  the  Byzantine  Empire,  the  bish- 
ops exercised  certain  rights  as  state  officials,  Gregory 
was  able  to  centre  in  his  own  hands  many  of  the  de- 
tails of  civil  administration.  Among  the  Lombards, 
his  influence  was  indirect,  but  it  was  powerful  be- 
cause it  was  exerted  through  the  Queen  Theodelinda, 
herself  a  Catholic,  and  Gregory's  aim  to  bring  over  the 


14  MEDIAEVAL  CHURCH  HISTORY 

whole   population,    Teutonic   and   Latin,    into   com- 
munion with  Rome,  was  crowned  with  success. 

With  the  Eastern  Empire,  the  upholding  of  Roman 
claims  was  a  matter  of  more  difficulty,  for  it  was  the 
policy  of  the  government  in  Constantinople  to  make 
the  patriarch  of  that  see  an  equal  in  fact,  as  well  as 
in  name,  of  the  Roman  bishop.  Gregory  tried  hard 
to  induce  the  Emperor  Maurice  to  deprive  the  patri- 
arch of  the  eastern  capital  of  the  title  of  Ecumenical 
Patriarch,  a  designation  which  began  to  be  given  to 
him  in  the  early  years  of  the  sixth  century.  But  the 
pope's  arguments  fell  on  unwilling  ears.  It  was  the 
pope's  interest  in  this  mattei:  which  caused  him  to 
greet  with  such  fulsome  adulation  the  accession  of  the 
usurper  Phokas,  who  made  himself  acceptable  at 
Rome  by  a  prompt  acknowledgment  of  the  plenary 
primacy  of  the  Roman  bishop. 

The  Church  in  England 

But  all  these  achievements  of  Gregory  are  in  their 
ultimate  results  of  inferior  importance  to  his  notable 
act  in  founding  the  Anglo-Saxon  Church — a  combi- 
nation of  missionary  zeal  and  intelligent  planning  by 
which  the  whole  course  of  the  development  of  West- 
ern Christianity  was  to  be  moulded.  No  other  Teu- 
tonic people  had  been  brought  to  accept  the  Gospel 
under  a  plan  of  missionary  campaign,  outlined  at 
Rome  and  with  Roman  clerics  as  its  agents.  Greg- 
ory's sending  of  Augustine  and  his  monks  in  596  to 
Saxon  England  was  equivalent  to  the  establishment, 


AFTER  THE  TEUTONIC  INVASIONS  15 


in  this  new  and  hardy  nation,  of  an  ecclesiastical 
district,  immediately  dependent  on  the  Roman  See, 
where  no  ancient  traditions  of  autonomous  diocesan 
order  could  be  brought  up  to  arrest  the  tendencies 
of  Roman  centralization.  The  ancient  population  of 
Britain  had  disappeared  under  the  savage  conditions 
of  conquest.  Except  in  the  mountains  of  Wales,  the 
whole  land  in  the  course  of  the  seventh  century,  with 
what  was  left  of  the  Celtic  population,  acknowledged 
the  overlordship  of  the  Saxons. 

So  the  ground  was  prepared  and  the  first  success  of 
the  missionaries  from  Rome  in  Kent  (597)  was  fol- 
lowed by  tribal  conversions  on  a  large  scale.  The 
foundations  of  bishoprics,— London  in  604,  Dorches- 
ter in  635,  York  in  627,— marked  the  stages  of  rapid 
progress.  A  period  of  reaction  soon  followed  through 
the  victories  of  the  heathen  king  Penda  of  Mercia, 
and  the  Roman  mission  soon  found  itself  confined  to 
a  small  area  in  the  south  and  southeast.  But  when 
the  prospects  of  Saxon  Christianity  seemed  darkest, 
a  new  and  unexpected  germinating  centre  of  religious 
activity  appeared,  fostered  by  the  labors  of  Irish- 
Scottish  monks.  Northumbria  was  again  won 
through  the  conversion  of  its  king  Oswald  while  in 
banishment  in  Scotland.  Penda  was  defeated  and 
with  him  the  pagan  reaction  collapsed.  By  660  at 
least,  four-fifths  of  the  Saxon  land  was  under  the  super- 
vision of  the  Scotch-Irish  mission,  whose  chief  seat 
was  the  famous  island  monastery  at  lona.  During 
this  period  of  the  advance  of  Celtic  Christianity,  the 


16  MEDIEVAL  CHURCH  HISTORY 

progress  of  the  Roman  mission  outside  of  Kent  had 
been  slow  and  tentative.  It  was  not  till  after  the 
middle  of  the  century  that  the  See  of  Winchester  was 
established. 

There  is  no  clear  proof  that  the  two  groups  of 
missionaries,  Roman  and  Irish,  regarded  themselves 
as  representing  rival  and  antagonistic  religious 
organizations.  Where  this  feeling  existed,  it  was 
due  to  the  bitter  racial  hatred  of  British  Celt  for 
Saxon, — an  antipathy  not  decreased  when  the  Saxon 
accepted  Christianity.  The  isolation  of  the  Irish 
Church  was  not  the  result  of  a  policy  anti-Roman  in 
character,  but  rather  was  an  accident  due  to  the  break- 
ing up  of  the  Roman  civil  provincial  system  through 
the  long  years  of  barbarian  conquest.  When  Gregory's 
missionaries  and  their  successors  appeared  on  Saxon 
soil,  they  were  not  looked  upon  as  interlopers  by  the 
representatives  of  Irish  Christianity.  Those  who  had 
worked  with  one  group  in  the  conversion  of  the  coun- 
try were  freely  received  as  associates  by  the  other. 
In  Ireland,  as  everywhere  else  in  the  West,  the 
Roman  See  was  revered;  there  was  little  tendency  to 
antagonism,  because  conditions  had  given  no  oppor- 
tunity for  effective  interference.  Where  differences 
were  recognized,  these  were  concerned  only  with 
subordinate  details,  such  as  the  style  of  tonsure.  The 
time  of  keeping  Easter,  on  which  point  the  Scotch- 
Irish  monks  followed  an  earlier  usage  of  the  Western 
Church,  brought  about  such  a  visible  difference  be- 
tween the  two  sets  of  converts,  that  strained  relations 


AFTER  THE  TEUTONIC  INVASIONS  17 

were  inevitable.  This  was  the  question  which  came 
up  for  decision  (664)  before  King  Oswy  of  Berni- 
cia,  who  decided  in  favor  of  the  Roman  custom  of 
Easter  observance.  In  other  Saxon  kingdoms,  soon 
after,  the  same  step  was  taken,  with  the  consequence 
that  the  few  Irish-Scotch  missionaries  who  refused 
to  comply  left  the  country.  Soon  after,  the  remnant 
of  the  Saxon  land  which  still  held  to  paganism  was 
converted  by  Wilfrid,  a  zealous  propagandist  of 
Roman  claims  to  the  fullest  extent  then  known,  with 
the  result  that  every  bishopric  was  united  to  the 
metropolitan  See  of  Canterbury,  which  had  itself  been 
the  first  fruits  of  the  papal  mission.  By  the  end  of 
the  seventh  century,  the  Roman  arrangement  of 
reckoning  Easter  was  accepted  in  Ireland,  and  not 
long  after  the  isle  of  lona  gave  up  the  primitive  Celtic 
usage.  In  717,  those  monks  who  refused  to  conform 
were  driven  from  the  community,  but  in  other  re- 
spects the  monastic  constitution  of  the  Irish  Church 
continued  unchanged  both  in  Ireland  and  in  Scotland. 
In  purely  Saxon  lands,  the  monasteries  founded  by 
the  Celtic  missionaries  were  centres  of  religious  prop- 
aganda, but  instead  of  keeping  control  of  church 
administration,  as  in  Ireland  and  Scotland,  they  were 
made  subordinate  to  the  diocesan  bishops. 

As  time  went  on  the  ties  of  England  with  Rome 
were  made  closer;  the  only  obstacle  to  a  complete 
status  of  dependence  was  the  growing  power  over 
church  affairs  of  the  various  Saxon  monarchs  who 
acquired  the  overlordship  of  what  had  previously  been 


18  MEDIAEVAL  CHURCH  HISTORY 

separated  kingdoms.  Close  relations  with  the  Roman 
See  were  sustained  in  extra-legal  ways;  especially 
through  the  literary  influence  of  the  monastic  schools, 
the  popularity  of  pilgrimages  to  Rome,  and  not  the 
least  because  of  the  extension  of  the  Benedictine  rule  in 
all  monastic  establishments,  which  meant  everywhere 
the  planting  of  centres  where  Rome  was  revered  and 
Roman  traditions  in  worship  carefuly  preserved.  The 
Church  soon  acquired  in  England  a  peculiarly  national 
character;  the  clergy  came  from  the  people,  and  un- 
derstanding their  needs  and  point  of  view  they  in- 
troduced throughout  the  principles  of  Latin  edu- 
cational methods.  Most  conspicuously  successful  in 
building  up  the  various  lines  of  church  administration 
and  expansion  was  Archbishop  Theodore,  himself  a 
Greek  by  birth,  whom  Pope  Vitalian  consecrated  in 
668  and  sent  to  England  to  perfect  the  existing  organ- 
ization by  methods  approved  by  Rome.  New  sees 
were  created,  the  decrees  of  the  five  General  Coun- 
cils accepted  at  the  Synod  of  Hatfield  (680),  which 
action  meant  that  the  position  of  the  Roman  See 
in  the  Three  Chapters  Controversy  was  taken  as 
the  model  of  orthodoxy.  Tendencies  of  a  similar 
character  are  to  be  noted  in  Theodore's  introduc- 
tion of  the  Roman  liturgy  and  breviary,  a  step  which 
imprinted  a  specifically  Roman  character  on  the 
Church  in  England,  and  which  caused  Theodore's 
work  there  to  be  used  as  a  model  when  it  was  sought 
to  bring  other  churches  in  closer  dependence  on  the 
See  of  Rome. 


AFTER  THE  TEUTONIC  INVASIONS  19 


Not  a  few  Anglican  writers  have  endeavored  to  dis- 
cover additional  grounds  for  the  separation  of  the 
English  Church  from  the  Roman  See  by  claiming  that 
the  Church  of  England  from  the  first  occupied  an  ex- 
ceptional position  in  relation  to  papal  jurisdiction. 
These  arguments  have  generally  taken  a  twofold  di- 
rection. First  it  is  shown  that  church  life  in  Britain 
was  not  entirely  interrupted  by  the  Saxon  conquest. 
It  is  true  that  the  British  Celts  maintained  their  faith 
in  those  regions  to  which  they  had  retired  to  escape 
from  their  conquerors,  but  the  Church  in  Saxon  Eng- 
land was  not  founded  through  the  missionary  efforts 
of  the  churches  existing  in  these  various  Celtic  tribes. 
The  missionary  work  done  in  Saxon  England  by  repre- 
sentatives of  Celtic  Christianity  was  effected  by  mem- 
bers of  the  Scottish-Irish  Church.  No  one  would  de- 
sire to  depreciate  the  missionary  zeal  of  this  church, 
and  nothing  but  admiration  can  be  felt  for  the  per- 
sonal character  of  its  missionaries  who  worked  with 
great  success  in  various  parts  of  Saxon  England,  but 
their  work  was  soon  assimilated  by  the  stronger 
organization  founded  and  developed  by  the  repre- 
sentatives of  the  Roman  See.  The  English  Church 
is  no  more  the  product  of  Celtic  tribal  Christianity 
than  is  the  English  State  the  product  of  Celtic  tribal 
custom. 

The  second  line  of  argument  is  based  on  fact  that 
the  jurisdiction  of  the  Roman  See  in  the  early  period 
of  the  English  Church  was  not  exercised  according  to 
the  rigid  administrative  and  canonical  principles  that 


20  MEDIEVAL  CHURCH  HISTORY 

are  found  everywhere  existing  after  the  time  of  Hil- 
debrand.  The  centralized  papal  absolutism,  as  will 
be  seen  in  the  later  chapters  of  this  textbook,  was 
gradually  developed,  but  to  claim  that  the  Church  of 
England  was  free  from  Rome  at  any  time  after  its 
foundation  is  a  mistake  similar  in  kind  as  to  claim 
that  the  American  colonies  were  free  from  the  En- 
glish crown  in  the  seventeenth  century,  simply  be- 
cause the  royal  prerogative  was  exercised  loosely  in 
America  during  the  seventeenth  and  more  rigidly  in 
the  eighteenth  century. 

During  the  early  period  where  precedents  may  be 
quoted  for  showing  how  lightly  Roman  jurisdiction 
was  recognized  in  the  Church  of  England,  even 
stronger  examples  might  be  quoted  from  the  churches 
of  France  and  Germany  where,  as  we  shall  see,  almost 
complete  local  autonomy  not  infrequently  prevailed 
during  the  period  of  papal  decline  immediately  prior 
to  the  Cluniac  reform.  Certainly  in  the  literature  of 
early  English  Christianity  there  was  no  such  strong 
anti-Roman  sentiment  as  can  be  found  in  Agnellus, 
the  chronicler  of  the  Church  at  Ravenna,  or  in  Liut- 
prand,  the  historian  of  Otto  the  Great. 

The  Church  and  the  New  Society 

The  time  was  now  ripe  for  similar  changes  on  a 
wider  field,  because  the  Teutonic  peoples  generally 
had  as  yet  developed  no  institutions  able  to  resist  a 
centralizing  ecclesiastical  policy.  Conversion  meant 
progress,    educational   and   social,  as   well   as   a   re- 


AFTER  THE  TEUTONIC  INVASIONS  21 


ligious  change.  Arianism  gave  Teutonic  Christianity 
a  national  character,  but  when  Arianism  was  exchanged 
for  Catholic  orthodoxy,  there  was  a  conscious  intro- 
duction of  novel  elements,  that  in  itself  implied  what 
might  be  called  centripetal  tendenices.  In  other 
words,  the  Germans  by  accepting  the  system  of  the 
Western  Church  had  by  this  very  fact  to  accommodate 
themselves  to  an  alien  environment.  In  the  course  of 
political  changes,  it  was  the  Prankish  monarchy 
which  influenced  both  positively  and  negatively  the 
course  of  church  development.  The  State,  as  under- 
stood by  the  Germans,  had  simply  the  obligation  of 
defence  and  the  preservation  of  a  crude  form  of 
justice.  Self-help  was  the  rule  for  all  other  types  of 
activity.  There  were  no  limits,  other  than  the  two 
just  enumerated,  imposed  upon  the  church  organi- 
zation when  it  was  introduced  among  the  Germanic 
peoples.  Its  task  was  outlined  not  by  what  the  Ger- 
mans recognized  as  their  own  needs,  but  by  the  ideals 
which  the  Church  had  inherited  from  its  own  history 
and  from  its  contact  with  Roman  civilization. 

The  peculiar  institutions  of  the  new  national  king- 
doms reacted  definitely  upon  the  administration  of  the 
Church.  The  king  lived  upon  the  proceeds  of  his 
landed  domains ;  the  population  was  agricultural  and 
the  barbarian  conquest  was  everywhere  followed  by 
the  decay  of  city  life.  This  gave  an  entirely  new 
direction  to  church  life,  which  had  always  hitherto 
centred  in  cities.  In  the  country  the  land  was  held 
in  great  estates  controlled  by  the  followers   of  the 


22  MEDIEVAL  CHURCH  HISTORY 

tribal  chieftan  or  king,  who  in  reward  for  aid 
given  in  the  times  of  conquest  bestowed  upon  them 
an  allotment  of  territory.  It  was  this  class  of  great 
land  owners  who  were  entrusted  with  the  work  of 
administration  of  justice  and  the  provision  of  de- 
fence. By  the  side  of  this  aristocracy  stood  the  bish- 
op, in  whom  was  invested  the  control  of  the  landed 
estates  of  the  Church,  and  who,  besides,  represented 
in  a  visible  form  what  the  Church  stood  for  as  the 
guide  and  protector  of  society.  Just  as  the  king  re- 
lied upon  the  territorial  aristocracy  and  from  it  drew 
his  counsellors  and  military  leaders,  so  he  depended 
upon  the  support,  material  and  moral,  of  the  episco- 
pate. Bishops  were  summoned  to  give  advice,  and 
because  in  so  many  ways  they  were  called  to  perform 
the  functions  of  the  secular  nobility,  their  own  in- 
terests became  largely  identical  with  those  of  the  class 
they  constantly  acted  with.  In  the  cities,  the  bish- 
op's position  as  leader  of  the  community  lost  prestige 
simply  because  the  city  was  no  longer  the  adminis- 
trative unit.  The  count  of  the  **Gau"  was  the  chief 
local  official,  and  he  overshadowed  the  authority  of 
the  bishop,  but  it  was  not  uncommon  in  the  interests 
of  the  landed  aristocracy  for  both  the  count  and 
the  bishop  to  be  taken  from  the  same  family. 

Undoubtedly,  the  most  important  influence  in  the 
life  of  the  mediaeval  Church  comes  from  its  control 
of  vast  landed  estates.  It  was  not  simply  a  question 
of  pious  bequests  made  in  the  hope  of  securing 
spiritual  privileges.     Numbers  of  small  landed  pro- 


AFTER  THE  TEUTONIC  INVASIONS  23 

prietors  turned  over  their  holdings  to  the  Church  in 
order  to  benefit  by  the  protection  afforded  by  the 
recognition  of  the  principles  of  Roman  law.  This 
legal  system  current  in  the  Church  was  much  more 
considerate  of  the  rights  of  private  ownership  than 
the  rules  of  tribal  customary  law  which  governed  the 
relations  of  a  free  peasantry.  In  this  way  the  Church 
as  landlord  became  entitled  to  certain  dues  and 
services  from  all  classes  of  its  tenants.  The  granting 
of  immunities  from  taxation  or  from  the  legal  juris- 
diction of  royal  officials  also  strengthened  the  au- 
tonomous position  of  the  Church;  or  rather  of  in- 
stitutions belonging  to  the  Church,  because  it  was 
really  the  individual  church  or  the  individual  monas- 
tery to  which  these  grants  were  made,  and  not  the 
religious  community  as  a  whole. 

Another  important  change,  as  the  mediaeval  period 
begins  to  develop,  is  the  enlargement  of  the  diocesan 
boundaries.  Previously  the  bishop's  jurisdiction  had 
been  confined  to  the  limits  of  the  city  which  gave  the 
name  to  his  see.  Now  it  began  to  be  extended  to  a 
larger  geographical  or  political  division,  and  so  in- 
cluded within  it  smaller  aggregations.  This  change 
was  introduced  by  Justinian  into  Italy  and  gradually 
extended  from  there  throughout  the  West.  Even  at 
an  earlier  period,  there  had  been  priests  with  coun- 
try charges,  in  most  cases  on  land  owned  by  city 
churches  or  belonging  to  secular  proprietors.  There 
is  proof  that  the  Teutonic  conquest  gave  great  im- 
petus to  the  erection  of  church  buildings,  oratories 


24  MEDIEVAL  CHURCH  HISTORY 

and  shrines.  In  country  districts,  according  to  Ger- 
manic law,  the  proprietor  of  the  land  had  absolute 
disposal  over  the  church  fabric  erected  upon  it;  he 
could  use  as  he  saw  fit  the  income  of  the  priest  who 
served  the  church,  could  appoint  whom  he  would,  and 
might  dismiss  him  at  will.  Naturally  this  meant  a 
decided  lessening  of  the  bishop's  power  over  his  own 
clergy.  Only  where  the  country  churches  were  on 
land  directly  owned  by  the  Church,  did  the  bishop's 
jurisdiction  actually  extend;  he  could  appoint  a 
member  of  his  own  city  clergy  to  look  after  them, 
control  his  conduct,  and  appropriate  for  the  use  of 
the  see  whatever  income  was  received.  By  degrees 
the  bishop's  oversight  was  extended  to  all  of  the  clergy 
in  the  diocese,  and  on  the  other  hand,  the  country 
church  acquired  a  more  independent  position  in  re- 
lation to  the  owner  of  the  land,  but  the  effort  to 
limit  lay  control  met  with  obstinate  resistance. 

Closely  connected  with  the  increase  of  country  con- 
gregations in  the  fifth  and  sixth  centuries,  was  the 
building  up  of  the  parish  system,  i.e.  of  independent 
units  economically  provided  for  by  the  community  in 
which  was  the  church  fabric,  whose  minister,  too, 
had  the  right  to  provide  for  all  the  spiritual  needs  of 
his  people.  In  regard  to  the  administration  of  baptism 
this  was  an  innovation,  for  previously  church  build- 
ings in  the  country  were  either  oratories  or  memo- 
rials of  martyrs;  those  who  used  them  as  their  spir- 
itual homes  had  to  repair  to  the  town  church,  over 
which  the  bishop  presided,  to  receive  baptism,  hear 


AFTER  THE  TEUTONIC  INVASIONS  25 

sermons  or  secure  the  administration  of  ecclesiastical 
penance.  The  minister  in  charge  of  the  country 
parish  came  to  be  called,  in  the  sixth  and  seventh 
centuries,  archpriest.  The  growth  of  this  system  was 
helped  by  the  decentralizing  inclination  of  the  Teu- 
tonic peoples.  In  England  the  bounds  of  the  parish 
followed  the  previously  existing  local  divisions,  the 
''hundreds",  and  it  should  not  fail  to  be  noted  that 
Theodore  of  Canterbury  did  pioneer  work  in  organ- 
izing the  administration  of  the  Church  of  England, 
by  founding  dioceses  and  creating  parishes,  with  the 
result  that  in  England  the  Church  set  out  to  do  its 
work  fully  equipped,  prepared  to  meet  the  local  con- 
ditions of  a  Germanic  folk,  agricultural  in  character, 
among  whom  the  traditions  of  the  Roman  munici- 
pality had  practically  disappeared. 

The  New  Penitential  System 

In  the  crude  state  of  society,  no  part  of  the 
Church's  organization  was  so  adjusted  to  deal  with  so- 
cial order  and  violence  as  its  disciplinary  or  pentien- 
tial  system,  especially  in  the  modifications  it  received 
in  Western  Christendom.  By  the  side  of  the  public 
practice  of  penance,  there  was  introduced  a  private 
and  personal  treatment  of  serious  cases,  which  were 
not  known  by  the  community,  but  which  were  volun- 
tarily brought  before  the  bishop  by  the  guilty  parties. 
Such  individuals  were,  at  the  bishop's  discretion, 
when  due  satisfaction  was  exacted,  restored  to  the 
communion  of  the  Church.     Moreover,  actual  excom- 


26  MEDIEVAL  CHURCH  HISTORY 

munication,  which  had  now  become  an  engine  of  social 
outlawry,  enforced  against  heretical  sects  by  the  secu- 
lar government,  became  restricted  in  its  use  by  the 
Church  and  in  place  of  it  there  were  imposed  various 
penitential  practices.  The  change  was  all  the  more 
a  natural  one  because  of  the  growth  of  monastic  life; 
a  monk  who  had  violated  the  rules  of  his  order  or 
was  unworthy,  could  be  disciplined  more  effectively 
by  the  application  of  a  definite  scale  of  penalties  than 
by  recourse  to  the  final  act  of  cutting  him  off  from  the 
community.  This  private  administration  of  penance 
was  in  the  sixth  and  seventh  centuries  applied  only 
to  the  clergy ;  probably  the  avoidance  of  public  scandal 
among  new  converts  may  have  suggested  its  adop- 
tion as  an  alternative  to  the  old  system  of  public 
penance,  which  was  still  enforced  upon  the  laity. 

It  is  necessary,  therefore,  to  examine  the  customs 
of  monastic  life  when  one  is  investigating  the  origins 
of  auricular  confession  as  it  is  found  in  Latin  Chris- 
tianity. In  monasteries,  it  was  regarded  as  an  evi- 
dence of  humility  for  a  monk  to  confess  his  errors  of 
thought  or  inclination.  Such  was  the  custom  which, 
beginning  in  the  monastic  establishments  of  the 
Scotch-Irish  Church,  was  rapidly  adopted  by  monks 
of  other  rules.  When  transferred  to  the  secular  and 
lay  world,  it  brought  into  existence  the  regular  sys- 
tem which  is  now  understood  under  the  terms  *'au- 
ricular  confession".  What  is  equally  important  was 
the  substitution  of  the  priest  for  the  bishop  in  the 
control  of  this  new  penitential  system.     He,  not  the 


AFTER  THE  TEUTONIC  INVASIONS  27 

bishop,  decided  when  the  penitent  should  be  re- 
admitted to  share  the  Eucharistic  Feast.  In  order 
to  lay  the  foundation  of  an  orderly  dealing  with  dere- 
lections,  great  and  small,  special  penitential  books 
were  prepared,  arranging  for  each  special  sin  an  ap- 
propriate penalty.  Fasting  was  the  widely  accepted 
compensation,  and  when  practised  for  a  short  time 
under  hard  or  unusual  conditions,  might  be  taken  as 
an  alternative  for  ascetic  discipline  of  a  less  rigorous 
nature  lasting  over  a  year.  Through  St.  Columbanus 
of  Luxeuil,  this  practice  was  introduced  into  the 
Frankish  Church,  where  it  found  a  ready  acceptance 
because  it  so  completely  harmonized  with  the  Teu- 
tonic custom  of  the  Wehrgeld,  by  which  infractions  of 
the  law  might  be  atoned  for  by  the  guilty  party  or  his 
relatives  upon  the  payment  of  a  sum  of  money,  the 
amount  being  determined  by  the  severity  of  the 
act  or  the  status  of  the  injured  individual.  The 
extension  of  the  monastic  penitential  system  is  only 
one  of  many  examples  of  the  preponderating  influence 
among  the  Teutonic  peoples  of  ascetic  communities. 
While  the  new  social  conditions  favored  this  exten- 
sion, the  influence  of  personality  cannot  be  neglected. 
Benedict  of  Nursia  (480-543)  was  the  revered  founder 
of  the  systematically  ordered  community  of  monks 
in  western  Europe.  Few  authentic  details  are  re- 
ported of  his  life,  but  from  what  we  do  know  it  was 
his  connection  with  ecclesiastical  miracles  that  gave 
the  widespread  repute  to  the  admirable  regulations  he 
imposed  in  his  monastery  of  Monte  Cassino.     Appar- 


28  MEDIEVAL  CHURCH  HISTORY 

ently  an  incident  of  the  Teutonic  invasion  caused  a 
general  extension  of  this  local  rule.  In  580,  the  Lom- 
bards destroyed  the  monastery;  the  monks  fled  to 
Rome  and  were  given  a  refuge  by  Pelagius  II  (579- 
590)  in  the  neighborhood  of  the  Lateran  palace.  In 
this  way  Gregory  the  Great  came  to  know  them  and  en- 
couraged the  adoption  of  their  rule  in  the  monasteries 
founded  by  him.  This  patronage  was  enough  to  pro- 
duce a  rapid  expansion  in  France,  Spain  and  England, 
and  St.  Benedict's  rule  soon  supplanted  that  of  Colum- 
banus  even  in  institutions  whose  founders  were  Celtic 
missionaries.  Among  the  Franks  the  owner  of  the 
ground  on  which  the  monastery  stood  acquired  definite 
rights  over  it.  The  abbot  could  be  named  by  a  secu- 
lar landlord,  and  it  was  regarded  as  natural  that 
monasteries  of  royal  foundation  should  be  largely 
dependent  upon  the  king,  and  they  were  used  as  valu- 
able sources  of  revenue. 

The  Church  and  Education 

Notable  changes  were  brought  about  in  education 
by  the  Teutonic  invasions.  In  the  first  place,  except 
for  the  clergy,  higher  education  in  any  way  deserving 
the  name  had  died  out  in  western  Europe.  In  Italy 
alone  the  old  schools,  the  heritage  of  the  classical  age, 
survived  where  the  seven  liberal  arts  were  professed, 
—grammar,  rhetoric,  dialectic,  arithmetic,  music,  ge- 
ometry, and  astronomy;  in  some  cases,  too,  instruc- 
tion in  the  civil  law  continued  to  be  given.  In  the 
early  period  of  the  Church  the  secular  schools  were 


AFTER  THE  TEUTONIC  INVASIONS  29 

frequented  by  the  clergy,  a  custom  approved  by  St. 
Augustine.  After  the  barbarian  conquests,  as  the 
old  schools  generally  disappeared,  special  provisions 
had  to  be  made  for  training  the  clergy  in  reading, 
singing  of  the  psalms,  and  in  the  conduct  of  church 
ceremonial  generally.  We  find  Galilean  and  Spanish 
synods  making  provision  for  this  kind  of  instruction 
early  in  the  sixth  century,  but  the  example  of  Gregory 
the  Great,  who  condemned  the  old  schools  of  the  pro- 
fessional rhetoricians  as  seed-beds  of  paganism,  pre- 
vented the  advancement  towards  higher  standards  of 
learning.  This  point  of  view  was  not  shared  by 
Cassiodorus,  the  prime  minister  of  Theodoric  the 
Ostrogoth  (480-575),  who  after  his  retirement  to  a 
monastery  laid  the  foundation  for  the  pursuit  of  higher 
learning  for  his  own  and  other  monks.  Works  of  a 
condensed,  crude  and  encyclopaedic  character  were 
prepared  which  preserved  some  of  the  elements  of 
learning.  Christian  and  pagan;  the  introduction  of 
libraries  in  monasteries  was  encouraged,  and  in  this 
way  they  became  the  chief  seats  of  learning  in  western 
Europe.  Centuries  passed  before  there  grew  up  along 
with  the  halting  gift  of  literary  expression,  some  cre- 
ative power  in  literature.  Education  meant  the 
mastery  of  the  scraps  and  fragments  of  classical  an- 
tiquity preserved  in  jejune  encyclopaedic  collections 
and  in  badly  digested  textbooks.  But  even  with 
such  unsatisfactory  guidance  the  Teutonic  peoples  had 
opened  to  them  the  avenues  of  intellectual  progress. 
Such  men   as    Isidore  of  Seville,  in  the  Visigothic 


30  MEDIEVAL  CHURCH  HISTORY 

Church  of  Spain,  and  Bede  in  Saxon  England  (674-735) 
did,  with  all  their  limitations,  noble  pioneer  educa- 
tional work.  And  here,  too,  Theodore  of  Canter- 
bury must  be  credited  with  the  organization  in  Eng- 
land of  cathedral  and  monastic  schools  which  became 
important  cultural  centres.  Those  who  benefited 
from  their  existence  were  primarily  the  members  of 
monastic  establishments;  the  secular  clergy  had  only 
the  rudiments  of  an  education.  All  that  was  expected 
of  the  latter  was  the  ability  to  read  and  understand 
portions  of  the  Latin  liturgy.  As  to  the  lay  mem- 
bers of  the  church  their  training  was  even  slighter, 
and  what  they  knew  came  filtered  to  them  through 
the  clerical  order. 

The  Advance  of  Islam 

More  and  more,  the  Teutonic  peoples  grew  to  be 
the  decisive  factors  in  Christendom,  but  in  this  evo- 
lution not  a  little  was  contributed  by  the  remarkable 
spread  of  the  religion  of  Islam  over  lands  where 
Christianity  had  originated  in  the  earliest  age  of  the 
Church.  Mohammed's  career  as  an  acknowledged  and 
victorious  leader  was  comparatively  short,  for  he  was 
over  forty  when  the  call  came,  and  his  death  occurred 
in  632  when  he  was  sixty-two.  His  religious  system, 
influenced  as  it  was  by  Judaism  and  by  Christian 
Gnostic  sects,  bore  the  impress  of  a  strong  and  original 
personality,  who  undertook  in  the  moral,  religious 
and  ceremonial  prescriptions  of  the  Q'ran  to  organize 
the  Arab  tribes  for  propaganda  and  conquest.     With- 


AFTER  THE  TEUTONIC  INVASIONS  31 


in  a  decade  after  the  prophet's  death,  the  two  great 
empires  in  the  East,  Persia  and  Rome,  both  con- 
tiguous to  what  had  been  before  to  them  the  terra 
incognita  of  the  Arabian  peninsula,  had  suffered 
enormous  territorial  losses— Egypt,  Syria,  and  Meso- 
potamia. By  650,  Northern  Africa  had  been  con- 
quered as  far  as  Tripoli ;  Persia  had  been  overrun  and 
the  island  of  Cyprus  taken.  In  693,  after  a  civil  war 
between  the  various  claimants  to  the  Caliphate  lasting 
over  forty  years,  the  advance  began  again.  India  was 
attained  on  the  east,  the  Caucasus  on  the  north, 
Asia  Minor  and  Thrace  invaded.  A  defeat  of  a  great 
fleet  sent  to  take  Constantinople  brought  a  halt  in  the 
advance  of  Islam  (717)  in  eastern  Europe. 

In  the  West  there  were  further  successes.  The 
conquest  of  North  Africa  was  completed  in  709,  and 
two  years  afterwards  Spain  was  invaded,  and  before 
720  the  Westgothic  monarchy  had  collapsed;  the 
Pyrenees  were  then  passed  and  towns  in  southern 
Frankland,  Narbonne,  Carcassone  and  Nimes  fell  into 
the  hands  of  the  Moslems.  It  was  Charles  Martel, 
the  leader  of  the  Franks,  who  by  inflicting  on  the 
marauding  hordes  a  decisive  defeat  at  Poitiers,  barred 
the  way  to  further  conquest,  and  soon  afterward  the 
Pyrenees  became  the  limits  of  the  Mohammed  world 
in  the  West.  Dissensions  among  the  Moorish  Emirs 
in  Spain  enabled  the  small  group  of  Westgothic  fu- 
gitives and  Basques  to  organize  a  Christian  kingdom, 
which,  with  slow  advance,  ultimately  forced  back  the 
Moslems  to  a  line  approximately  dividing  the  Iberian 


32  MEDIEVAL  CHURCH  HISTORY 

peninsula  in  half.  By  these  Moslem  conquests  the 
Mediterranean  became  an  Arab  lake  in  its  western 
portion.  Arab  fleets  preserved  their  mastery  over  it 
and  made  periodic  attacks  on  Sicily  and  the  other 
large  islands,  and  ravaged  the  Prankish  and  Italian 
shore  lines.  As  a  consequence,  western  Europe  re- 
mained practically  shut  off  from  international  trade, 
a  situation  which  had  a  decisive  influence  on  the  re- 
ligious condition  of  the  West.  From  this  time  the 
needs  and  problems  of  city  life,  as  developed  by  trade 
on  a  large  scale,  had  hardly  to  be  considered  by  the 
Church.  This  meant  that  so  far  as  church  adminis- 
tration was  concerned,  traditional  lines  were  followed, 
but  the  crude  condition  of  society  also  encouraged 
the  building  up  of  barriers  against  any  kind  of  pro- 
gress. 

In  all  that  civilization  stands  for,  the  Byzantine 
Empire  was  decidedly  in  advance  of  western  Europe. 
In  Islam  itself  the  union  of  widely  separated  terri- 
tories under  the  stimulus  of  a  common  religion,  a 
common  polity,  allied  with  possibilities  of  trade  inter- 
course between  various  nationalities,  manifested  itself 
in  a  social  organization  which  found  its  intellectual 
and  aesthetic  expression  in  the  flourishing  cities  of 
the  Iberian  peninsula  and  in  the  prosperity  of  the 
lands  under  the  Caliphate  of  Bagdad.  The  Arab 
conquerors  for  a  time  practised  a  policy  of  toleration 
in  the  East.  After  the  Arab  conquest  had  led  to  the 
permanent  occupation  of  eastern  lands,  the  Nestorian 
Church  attained  a  unique  position  as  the  centre  of 


AFTER  THE  TEUTONIC  INVASIONS  33 

cultural  influence  among  the  conquerors.  Members 
of  this  church  held  high  positions  as  secretaries  and 
doctors  in  the  courts  of  the  Khalifs,  and  it  was 
through  the  medium  of  the  Syriac  translations  of 
Greek  originals  that  the  Arabs  came  into  contact  with 
the  great  storehouses  of  occidental  science  and  philos- 
ophy. Indirectly,  therefore,  the  intellectual  renais- 
sance in  western  Europe  in  the  twelfth  and  thirteenth 
centuries  may  be  credited  to  the  educational  ac- 
tivities of  the  Nestorians  who  promoted  the  growth 
of  Arabic  learning. 

The  rapidity  of  the  Moslem  conquests  in  the  pro- 
vinces of  the  Eastern  Empire  was  due  to  something 
more  than  the  fanatical  bravery  of  the  followers  of  the 
new  religion.  Much  must  be  ascribed  to  the  hatred 
felt  for  the  centralizing  despotism  of  Constantinople 
in  enforcing  dogmatic  uniformity.  In  Egypt,  the 
Monophysites  hailed  the  Arabs  as  deliverers;  the 
province  was  surrendered  into  their  hands  through 
the  betrayal  of  a  Coptic  general.  Bishops,  sees,  and 
church  buildings  belonging  to  the  orthodox  Greek- 
speaking  party  were  turned  over  to  the  conquerors 
by  the  native  inhabitants.  For  eighty  years  the 
Greek  patriarchate  of  Alexandria  was  vacant,  and  even 
when  reoccupied  it  never  regained  its  influence. 
Though  in  Syria  the  orthodox  party  was  stronger,  the 
Monophysites  won  the  upper  hand  finally,  simply  be- 
cause the  conquerors  favored  them  as  a  Christian 
element  inimical  both  ecclesiastically  and  politically 
to   the  government   at  Constantinople.     While   the 


34  MEDIEVAL  CHURCH  HISTORY 

balance  of  power  was  being  shifted  to  the  native 
Christian  churches  which  had  felt  for  so  long  the  heavy 
hand  of  imperial  repression,  large  masses  of  Chris- 
tians accepted  the  Moslem  faith  in  southern  Egypt. 
Christianity  disappeared  there  entirely;  it  was  only  in 
the  more  remote  region  of  Abyssinia,  which  withstood 
the  shock  of  conquest,  that  the  semblance  of  a  national 
church  survived.  In  what  had  been  Latin-speaking 
Africa,  the  Arab  conquest  produced  even  more  disas- 
trous results.  By  the  eleventh  century  there  were 
only  five  churches  left  under  the  Bishop  of  Carthage. 
In  Spain  the  mass  of  the  population,  to  whom  the 
Visigothic  rule  meant  an  oppressive  land  system 
under  great  landlords  and  the  selfish  control  by  an 
ecclesiastical  oligarchy  of  the  administration  in  its 
smallest  details,  accepted  without  reluctance  the 
Arab  and  Berber  domination.  The  Jews  especially, 
who  were  an  important  factor  in  the  population,  wel- 
comed the  Moslems  as  saviors,  and  the  peasants  had 
no  difficulty  in  becoming  converts  to  the  new  order. 
Wherever  Islam  prevailed,  full  autonomy  was  granted 
to  the  Christian  communities.  The  bishops  were 
formally  recognized  as  the  responsible  heads,  in  whose 
hands  the  administration  of  the  law,  both  civil  and 
criminal,  according  to  the  Roman  system,  was  left. 
Even  the  death  penalty  was  put  at  their  disposition. 
Exceptional  in  the  denial  of  such  privileges  was 
Spain,  where  the  Moslem  emirs  summoned  synods 
and  nominated  candidates  from  the  Christian  clergy 
for  advancement  to  the  episcopate. 


CHAPTER  II. 

THE  CHURCH  IN  THE  CAROLINGIAN 
EMPIRE 

IN  tracing  the  advance  westward  of  Mohammedan- 
ism, we  have  passed  beyond  the  chronological 
limits  of  the  internal  history  of  the  Church  during  the 
seventh  and  eighth  centuries.  Theological  discussions 
again  became  important  when  the  Emperor  Heraclius 
(610-641)  restored  to  the  Empire  some  of  the  eastern 
and  southern  provinces  previously  taken  by  the  Per- 
sians. In  order  to  conciliate  their  Monophysite  popu- 
lation he,  acting  with  the  advice  of  the  patriarch  Ser- 
gius,  issued  a  compromise  formula  according  to  which 
the  one  Christ  was  endowed  with  a  divine-human 
energy,  itself  the  spring  of  every  act  of  a  single 
personality.  This  was  successful  in  bringing  back 
many  Monophysites.  Later,  after  further  debate,  this 
compromise  was  dropped  for  the  expresssion  ''One 
Will",  in  which  the  two  natures,  divine  and  human, 
were  manifested, —  the  Ecthesis  of  Heraclius  (638). 
This  formula  was  suspected  by  the  West,  where  the 
phraseology  of  Chalcedon  was  loyally  respected,  and 
the  division  produced  disastrous  results  in  Africa, 
paving  the  way  for  the  Arab  conquest.  In  vaia 
Constans  II  (642-688)  forbad,  by  the  "Typus",  the  dis- 
cussion of  the  question.  The  advocates  of  the  * 'Two- 
Will"  theory  were  active  in  Rome,  and  secured  the  co- 


36  MEDIEVAL  CHURCH  HISTORY 

operation  of  Pope  Martin  I,  who  paid  for  his  sympathy 
by  deprivation  of  his  see  and  by  banishment  at  the 
hands  of  the  emperor  (653).  After  this,  communion 
with  the  East  was  for  a  time  interrupted;  then,  as  the 
importance  of  keeping  a  hold  on  the  Italian  peninsula 
became  impressed  upon  the  authorities  at  Constanti- 
nople, a  change  of  direction  in  ecclesiastical  policy 
took  place  at  the  Sixth  Ecumenical  Council  (Con- 
stantinople, 680)  where  Monothelitism  (the  doctrine 
of  One  Will),  including  one  of  its  supporters.  Pope 
Honorius,  was  formally  anathematized  This  action 
was  altogether  acceptable  in  the  West,  but  caused 
in  the  East  a  schism  among  the  Syrians,  who  sepa- 
rated from  the  Byzantine  Church,  and  who  still,  under 
the  name  of  Maronites,  preserve  a  semi-independent 
existence.  The  Monophysites  outside  the  limits  of 
the  Empire,  now  narrowed  by  the  Moslem  conquest, 
/  paid  no  attention  to  the  decree,  and  of  course  it 
could  not  be  enforced  among  them. 

The  Genesis  of  Papal  Independence 

All  attempts  to  conciliate  the  Church  in  Italy  and  to 
retain  the  Peninsula  as  a  province  of  the  Empire  failed 
because  of  the  territorial  gains  made  by  the  Lom- 
bards. The  splitting  up  of  the  country  into  small 
isolated  territories,  still  more  or  less  nominally  sub- 
ject to  Constantinople,  was  the  indirect  result  of  the 
Lombard  invasion,  and  powerfully  contributed  to 
increase  the  power  of  the  local  bishops.  More  par- 
ticularly   was  this  the  case  in  Ravenna  and  Rome. 


THE  CAROLINGIAN  EMPIRE  37 

The  work  of  defence  was  taken  over  by  the  munici- 
pality, after  the  imperial  authorities  had  shown  them- 
selves unable  to  protect  the  citizens  against  the  much- 
feared  Lombard  raiders.  The  role  of  leader  in  this 
accidentally  developing  local  autonomy  was  naturally 
assumed  by  the  bishop,  for  it  must  be  remembered  that 
the  struggle  with  the  Lombards  was  religious  as  well  as 
racial.  Being  in  possession  and  in  control  of  indepen- 
dent military  power,  the  Bishops  of  Rome  were  able 
to  withstand  the  imperial  mandate,  refused  to  consent 
to  the  revival  of  Monothelitism  by  Philip  Bardanes 
(711-713),  and  resisted  the  attempts  of  Justinian  II 
to  limit  papal  authority  (692,  705,  707).  Yet  this  au- 
tonomy was  not  systematically  worked  out,  for  at  this 
time  each  newly  elected  Roman  Bishop  had  to  secure 
the  assent  of  the  imperial  representative  at  Ravenna, 
the  exarch,  before  his  election  was  held  to  be  valid. 
But  the  road  to  political  power  without  any  real  com- 
petition from  civil  officials  was  opened  to  the  bishops 
of  Italian  sees,  as  Byzantine  administration  became 
disintegrated.  In  Lombard  territory,  the  conversion 
of  the  Germanic  invaders  to  orthodoxy  brought  the 
local  churches  under  the  kind  of  royal  supervision 
which  prevailed  among  the  Westgoths  and  the 
Franks.  Appeals  to  Rome  stopped.  The  See  of 
Milan  had  again  an  actual  metropolitan  jurisdiction, 
with  its  bishop  at  the  head  of  what  might  be  called 
the  Lombard  Church. 

A  further  advance  of  the  Roman  See  towards  in- 
dependent  sovereignty  and  actual  overlordship  was 


38  MEDIEVAL  CHURCH  HISTORY 

introduced  by  the  campaign  against  image-worship 
in  the  East,  where  under  Leo  the  Isaurian  (716-741) 
a  determined  effort  was  made  to  put  a  stop  to  the  ex- 
cessive reverence  paid  to  representations  of  Christ 
and  the  Saints.  This  popular  devotion  was  largely 
encouraged  by  the  oriental  monks,  and  it  may  be  that 
the  government  used  the  controversy  as  to  the 
legitimacy  of  image-worship  in  order  to  diminish 
the  influence  of  the  monks,  who  in  the  preceding 
theological  controversies  had  often  stoutly  resisted 
the  imperial  edicts.  In  726  an  order  was  issued  di- 
recting the  removal  from  the  churches  of  all  images. 
In  Italy  the  attempt  to  apply  it  caused  revolts  in  Ra- 
venna, Naples  and  Rome.  Gregory  II  (715-731)  took 
the  lead  in  resisting  the  imperial  decree  and  pre- 
vented the  removal  from  the  basilica  of  St.  Peter  of 
the  famous  bronze  statue  of  the  Apostle.  All  taxes 
were  refused,  and  the  bishop  took  upon  himself  to 
name  the  dux,  or  head  of  the  civil  administration  in 
the  city.  This  dissension  between  the  emperor  and 
the  local  Roman  Church  was  taken  advantage  of  by 
the  Lombard  king,  Liutprand  (713-744),  who  allied 
himself  with  the  exarch,  hoping  soon  to  annex  Rome 
and  its  adjoining  territory  to  his  dominions. 

The  Roman  See  was  in  a  hazardous  position.  The 
bishoprics  in  southern  Italy  and  eastern  Illyricum 
were  placed  under  the  jurisdiction  of  the  patriarch 
of  Constantinople;  much  of  its  patrimonial  domains 
was  now  in  territory  held  by  the  Arabs,  and  wherever 
the  imperial  mandate  or  Lombard  control  prevailed, 


THE  CAROLINGIAN  EMPIRE  39 

the  source  of  income  was  shut  off.  To  secure  allies 
against  the  danger  of  annihilation  was  impossible, 
for  Charles  Martel  would  risk  nothing  to  protect  the 
papacy.  The  Iconoclastic  troubles  reached  their 
climax  in  the  East  in  the  reign  of  Constantine  V 
(741-775).  Crowds  of  monks  went  into  exile,  many 
seeking  refuge  in  western  Europe.  Finally,  under 
the  Empress  Irene,  there  was  a  period  of  reaction, 
during  which  a  general  council  was  held  at  Nicsea 
{7^7),  which  permitted  modified  forms  of  reverence 
to  pictures  and  sculptured  objects. 

St.  Boniface 

In  the  West  the  whole  situation  was  modified  by 
political  changes  involving  the  Franks  and  the  Lom- 
bards, which  profoundly  influenced  the  destinies  of 
the  papacy.  The  tribal  monarchy  of  the  Franks  had 
been  weakened  by  internecine  strife,  the  result  of 
partitions  in  the  royal  house  of  Clovis.  This  cen- 
trifugal movement  seemed  to  have  no  limit  until  the 
Arnolfings  appeared  with  a  series  of  able  men,  exercis- 
ing as  mayors  of  the  palace  royal  power  under  the 
names  of  the  feeble  Merovingians  and  so  put  a  stop 
to  separatist  tendencies.  The  most  vigorous  of  all 
these  strong  executives  was  Charles  Martel  (714-741), 
famous  for  his  victory  over  the  Moslems  in  732, 
almost  equally  well  known  for  the  way  in  which  he 
used  the  property  of  bishoprics  and  abbeys  to  pro- 
mote his  nationalist  policies  and  force  recalcitrant 
Frankish  nobles  to  accept  him  as  sole  ruler  of  Frank- 


40  MEDIEVAL  CHURCH  HISTORY 

land.  In  a  considerable  part  of  Austrasia,  the  north- 
eastern division  of  Prankish  territory,  and  in  the  ring 
of  dependent  Teuton  peoples  still  further  east,  Chris- 
tianity had  a  weak  position;  where  it  had  previously 
existed  it  almost  disappeared  when  the  Roman  pro- 
vincial cities  became  deserted.  In  Hesse,  Thuringia 
and  Bavaria,  the  new  faith  had  very  little  hold ;  there 
were  settlements  of  Scotch-Irish  monks  scattered 
about  this  field  but  no  church  organization,  no  sys- 
tematic missionary  effort.  Only  in  the  neighborhood 
of  these  monastic  settlements  were  the  rough  inhab- 
itants of  the  countryside  influenced.  Everywhere 
else,  even  when  the  traditional  polytheism  was  not 
kept  intact,  priests  and  people,  though  nominally 
Christian,  adhered  to  a  faith  in  which  the  old  and 
new  elements  were  strangely  intermixed. 

The  work  of  gathering  up  these  scattered  threads, 
of  giving  them  coherence,  and  making  the  fragments 
useful  for  further  expansion,  was  taken  up  by  Saxon 
monks  trained  in  the  spirit  of  loyalty  to  Roman 
principles  of  administration.  Willibrord  worked  in 
Frisia  with  good  results,  but  even  more  successful 
was  Wynfrith,  better  known  under  his  Latin  name  of 
Boniface,  to  whom  Pope  Gregory  II  gave  full  powers 
to  organize  German  Christianity  (718).  On  his  ele- 
vation to  the  episcopate  he  took  an  oath  binding  him- 
self to  place  the  churches  in  his  charge  under  the  im- 
mediate jurisdiction  of  Rome.  He  pledged  himself, 
too,  to  refuse  fellowship  with  every  bishop  who 
failed  to  observe  the  same  standards  of  strict  loyalty 


THE  CAROLINGIAN  EMPIRE  41 

to  the  Roman  See.  During  his  whole  life  Boniface 
remained  a  faithful  and  efficient  intrument  of  Roman 
propaganda.  After  finishing  his  task  in  one  district, 
he  would  at  the  pope's  direction  pass  to  another, 
reproducing  under  changed  forms  and  aims  the  rigid 
ideals  of  the  Roman  provincial  government  during 
the  golden  period  of  the  Empire.  In  732,  he  received 
the  pallium  and  metropolitan  rank  at  the  hands  of 
Gregory  III.  But  he  was  not  only  distinguished  as 
the  founder  and  organizer  of  bishoprics.  Everywhere 
he  relied  on  monastic  institutions,  and  many  monks 
/and  nuns  were  brought  from  England  to  act  as 
agents  in  founding  new  communities.  Backed  as  he 
was  by  Charles  Martel,  Boniface  extended  the  limits 
of  definite  papal  organization  from  the  northeastern 
borders  of  Italy  to  the  regions  of  the  Low  Countries 
along  the  course  of  the  middle  and  lower  Rhine. 

Boniface's  work  stimulated  an  active  revival  in  the 
Prankish  Church  generally.  Lay  control  of  bishoprics 
and  abbeys,  which  meant  increased  power  of  the  land- 
ed aristrocracy,  was  definitely  limited.  This  did  not 
imply  anything  resembling  a  free  Church,  because  in 
place  of  the  local  landlord  there  was  substituted  the 
sovereignty  of  the  mayor  of  the  palace  who  called 
synods  together,  proposed,  after  consultation  with  the 
bishop  and  nobles,  schemes  of  reform,  gave  them  leg- 
islative sanction  and  imposed  upon  his  subordinate  ec- 
clesiastical official  the  duty  of  enforcing  them.  In  gen- 
eral, however,  through  the  influence  of  Boniface,  the 
principles  of  English  church  organization  were  car- 


42  MEDIEVAL  CHURCH  HISTORY 

ried  out  among  the  Franks  through  a  strict  enforce- 
ment of  the  diocesan  system.  It  meant,  too,  the 
introduction  of  the  Benedictine  rule,  the  recognition 
of  Roman  ritual  as  the  norm  for  church  services  and 
devoted  loyalty  to  the  Bishop  of  Rome  as  head  of  the 
Church.  That  the  national  spirit  of  the  Franks  did 
not  easily  accommodate  itself  to  this  campaign  of 
centralization  is  seen  in  the  fact  that  Boniface,  dis- 
gusted with  the  laxity  which  still  prevailed,  withdrew 
from  his  episcopate  and  found  a  martyr's  death  among 
the  Frisian  pagans  (755). 

The  properties  of  churches  and  monasteries  alien- 
ated by  Charles  Martel  were  still  left  in  the  possession 
of  the  actual  occupants,  but  arrangements  were  made 
for  ultimate  reversion  to  the  original  owners,  subject, 
however,  to  any  future  disposition  by  the  head  of  the 
Frankish  nation.  Apathetic  though  the  majority  of 
the  clergy  and  laity  were  to  this  new  ecclesiastical 
policy  of  '^thorough",  there  were  those  who  sympa- 
thized with  it,  among  them  being  Bishop  Chrodegang 
of  Metz  (742-766),  famous  for  his  organization  of  the 
clergy  of  his  cathedral  into  a  semi-monastic  com- 
munity—  a  precedent  much  followed  afterwards  in 
western  Europe. 

The  Papacy  and  the  Franks 

Before  the  middle  of  the  eighth  century,  some  form 
of  unity  was  being  reestablished  in  the  West.  The 
period  of  disintegration  caused  by  the  invasion  was 
clearly  over,  and  it  was  through  the  Franks  that  cen- 


THE  CAROLING/AN  EMPIRE  43 

tralization  began  and  the  movement  was  actually  fur- 
thered by  the  condition  of  international  politics.  It 
meant  much  to  Pippin,  Charles  Martel's  son,  that  the 
formal  recognition  of  his  sovereignty  over  the  Franks 
should  come  from  the  papacy,  and  when  Pope  Zacha- 
rias  sanctioned  the  transfer  of  the  crown  from  the 
decadent  Merovingians,  he  was  bidding  for  future 
favors.  The  time  to  show  gratitude  was  close  at 
hand,  for  the  popes  were  living  in  constant  terror  of 
Lombard  aggression.  The  Byzantine  provinces,  the 
Exarchate  and  Pentapolis  had  already  been  taken ;  it 
was  not  likely  that  Rome  could  escape.  During  Pope 
Stephen's  visit  to  France,  by  the  treaties  of  Pontheon 
and  St.  Denys,  Pippin  pledged  himself  to  restore 
to  the  Roman  See  its  private  domains  held  by  the 
Lombard  king,  and,  what  was  more  strikingly  origi- 
nal, to  turn  over  to  the  Duchy  of  Rome  the  conquered 
Byzantine  territories.  As  the  de  facto  ruler  of  the 
duchy  was  the  pope,  this  meant  a  significant  incre- 
ment of  territorial  sovereignty  (754). 

One  limitation,  however,  must  be  recorded;  though 
the  emperor's  consent  was  no  longer  asked  in  papal 
elections,  his  authority  was  still  acknowledged,  and 
all  documents  contained  the  year  of  his  reign.  It  was 
proposed  in  the  treaties  that  Pippin  should  receive 
the  title  of  Patrician,  probably  with  the  intention  that 
he  should  exert  over  the  newly  acquired  territory  the 
rights  of  the  Byzantine  exarch.  As  a  matter  of  fact, 
the  plan  outlined  at  this  time  was  left  to  Pippin's 
heir,  Charles,  to  put  into  operation.     His  expedition 


44  MEDIEVAL  CHURCH  HISTORY 

across  the  Alps  in  773  brought  about  the  downfall  of 
the  Lombard  kingdom,  but  there  was  no  cession  of 
the  territories  mentioned  in  the  treaty,  for  Charles  in 
renewing  them  had  inserted  the  insignificant  clause 
that  the  pope  should  be  obliged  to  prove  his  title. 
What  Hadrian  (772-795)  actually  received  was  the 
administration  of  Rome  and  a  few  other  cities  under 
Prankish  oversight.  Both  Rome  and  Ravenna  be- 
came Prankish  cities  and  bishoprics.  The  year  772  is 
the  last  in  which  the  name  of  the  eastern  emperor  is 
cited  on  documents;  from  781  begins  the  official  reck- 
oning according  to  the  years  of  the  pontificate.  So 
the  Prankish  constitution  of  the  Church  was  intro- 
duced into  northern  Italy  with  its  mixture  of  secular 
control  and  diocesan  regulation. 

Closely  connected  with  the  period  of  Prankish  in- 
tervention is  the  so-called  Donation  of  Constantine, 
evidently  intended  to  furnish  the  crude  allies  of  the 
Roman  See  in  the  north  with  predigested  historical 
knowledge.  The  document,  after  telling  the  legend  of 
the  miraculous  healing  of  the  first  Christian  emperor 
by  Pope  Sylvester,  relates  how  the  emperor  in  his 
gratitude  for  his  recovery  assigned  to  the  See  of 
Rome  preeminence  over  the  four  eastern  patri- 
archates, and  in  fact  over  all  churches,  the  control 
of  matters  of  belief  and  worship,  in  virtue  of  its 
bishops'  succession  from  St.  Peter.  It  provided  for 
the  transfer  to  him  of  private  domains  belonging  to 
the  emperor,  and  for  the  rendering  of  ceremonial 
honors  to  the  clergy  of  the  city,  making  them  equal 


THE  CAROLINGIAN  EMPIRE  45 

of  the  senators.  To  the  bishop  the  imperial  insignia 
were  assigned,  and  the  emperor  did  him  personal 
service  by  leading  the  horse  on  which  he  rode. 
Finally  there  were  extensive  concessions  of  sover- 
eignty over  ''all  the  provinces,  places  and  cities  of 
Italy  and  the  regions  of  the  West",  with  the  reserved 
right  of  overlordship  to  the  emperor,  who  removed 
therefore  his  residence  to  Byzantium.  This  falsifi- 
cation was  almost  certainly  prepared  in  Rome,  proba- 
bly in  the  time  of  Hadrian  (781),  though  some  au- 
thorities prefer  an  even  earlier  date.  Though  the  Do- 
nation made  little  impression  on  Charles,  it  proved  an 
invaluable  aid  later  in  furthering  the  political  aims 
of  the  papacy. 

Charles  the  Great  and  the  Church 

The  conquests  of  the  great  Prankish  monarch 
worked  mighty  results  in  the  religious  condition  of 
western  Europe.  New  territory  was  brought  in, 
and  lands  never  forming  a  part  of  the  original  Roman 
Empire  were  provided  with  churches  and  missionaries. 
Especially  were  the  hitherto  untouched  Germanic 
tribes  affected,  such  as  the  Saxons  and  Frisians,  but 
Slavonic  peoples  were  also  influenced.  Numerous 
new  bishoprics  were  founded  and  Christianity  was 
extended  by  opening  up  new  lands  to  Germanic  ex- 
pansion. Wherever  there  was  opposition,  as  among 
the  Saxons,  paganism  was  put  down  with  a  heavy 
hand,  heathen  practices  and  the  refusal  of  baptism 
being  made  in  'j'^^  punishable  by  death.     Charles  used 


46  MEDIEVAL  CHURCH  HISTORY 

the  Church  as  a  civilizing  and  social  instrument. 
His  bishops  carried  out  his  orders,  and  through  him 
was  constructed  that  idea  of  a  Christian  common- 
wealth resting  on  a  centralized  church  organization, 
which  survived  for  so  long  the  destruction  of  his  own 
empire.  The  ecclesiastical  policy  of  his  immediate 
predecessors,  Pippin  and  Charles  Martel,  was  applied 
everywhere  in  the  fullest  detail  so  far  as  concerned  the 
organization  of  dioceses  and  parishes.  Episcopal 
control  and  discipline  were  defined  and  made  effective ; 
the  tithing  system  was  introduced;  in  monasteries 
the  rule  of  St.  Benedict  prevailed  under  the  super- 
vision of  the  diocesan,  yet  the  autonomy  of  the  com- 
munity remained.  Episcopal  sees  were  subjected  to 
metropolitan  jurisdiction,  and  the  word  archbishop 
came  at  this  time  into  general  use.  Materially  the 
Church  gained  large  accessions  of  landed  property, 
yet  at  the  same  time  the  control  of  the  royal  power 
over  all  types  of  ecclesiastical  foundations  was  made 
more  complete  by  the  very  fact  of  these  generous  do- 
nations. 

The  age  was  marked  also  by  a  general  revival  of 
learning,  Charles'  court  being  frequented  by  scholars, 
and  there  was  a  remarkable  increase  in  literary  pro- 
ductivity. Great  care  was  given  to  the  copying  of 
manuscripts  and  the  preparation  of  church  service- 
books.  In  all  this  development  the  Roman  norm  was 
followed;  for  example,  Roman  canonical  collections 
were  made  authoritative,  the  Roman  liturgy  and 
Roman  breviary  accepted  throughout  the  extent  of  the 


THE  CAROLING/AN  EMPIRE  47 

Carolingian  Empire.  Interesting,  also,  is  the  rise  of 
a  self-conscious  community  which  shows  itself  in  the 
attitude  adopted  by  the  Carolingian  Church  in  the 
Iconoclastic  Controversy,  in  which  a  line  was  taken 
altogether  independent  of  the  Eastern  Church  of  787. 
More  important  even  was  the  question  of  Adoption- 
ism,  a  revival  of  Nestorianism  in  the  Spanish  Church, 
probably  due  to  the  introduction  there  of  Eastern 
Christians  in  the  train  of  the  Arab  conquerors.  This 
controversy,  too,  was  decided  by  a  series  of  imperial 
synods,  held  under  Alcuin,  Charles'  most  famous 
ecclesiastical  adviser.  A  more  questionable  instance 
of  the  same  independence  may  be  seen  in  the  addition 
to  the  Nicene  symbol  of  the  word  "filioque",  which 
the  Carolingian  theologians  did  not  hesitate  to  adopt 
in  order  to  bring  the  Creed  into  more  complete  har- 
mony with  the  teaching  of  St.  Augustine. 

The  climax  of  this  whole  movement  came  with  the 
restoration  of  the  Empire  of  the  West  by  the  coro- 
nation of  Charles  in  Rome  in  800  as  emperor,  an  act 
which  he  had  attempted  to  arrange  diplomatically  with 
the  eastern  emperor,  but  which  Pope  Leo  III  ap- 
parently carried  out  without  securing  the  Prankish 
monarch's  consent  to  those  details  of  the  service 
by  which  papal  privileges  were  over-emphasized. 
Charles'  Church,  be  it  remembered,  was  in  every 
sense  a  State  Church,  i.e.  the  State  was  in  all  relations 
the  predominant  partner.  All  bishops  were  appointed 
by  the  emperor  and  he  was  the  supreme  court  for 
hearing  ecclesiastical  cases.      The  canon  law  was  a 


48  MEDIEVAL  CHURCH  HISTORY 

part  of  Carolingian  legislation,  the  property  of  abbeys 
was  treated  as  if  it  were  a  part  of  the  royal  domain, 
and  all  lands  were  liable  to  taxation  and  other  obli- 
gations. In  the  visitations  of  the  royal  officials, 
the  Missi,  the  clergy  were  treated  in  the  same  way 
as  laymen,  and  even  the  church  synod  became  the 
organ  of  the  emperor's  will. 

The  pope  had  no  place  outside  this  system;  he  was 
but  the  first  bishop  of  the  Empire,  and  was  held  to  be 
the  subject  of  the  emperor.  He  addressed  the  emper- 
or as  his  master;  papal  documents  were  dated  by  the 
years  of  the  imperial  reign ;  the  Byzantine  ceremony 
of  genuflection,  and  adoration  to  the  emperor,  was  a 
part  of  the  coronation  service  of  800;  and  more  signifi- 
cant still  was  the  action  of  Charles  at  Rome  in  de- 
ciding whether  certain  charges  made  against  Leo  were 
or  were  not  justified.  The  patrimony  of  the  Roman 
See  was  administered  by  royal  officials,  dogmatic 
questions  decided  without  asking  the  pope's  advice, 
and  sometimes  final  decisions  made  in  contradiction 
to  his  wishes,  as  in  the  case  of  image-worship  and 
the  addition  of  *'filioque"  to  the  Creed.  Externally 
and  internally,  the  control  of  church  affairs  was  in 
Charles'  hands.  Appeals  to  Rome  are  not  recorded; 
and  altogether,  in  the  Carolingian  system,  the  pope 
had  a  position  in  which  reverence  for  the  honored 
apostolic  see  was  not  allowed  to  be  translated  into 
juristic  concessions  of  sovereignty  either  in  the  ec- 
clesiastical or  the  civil  sphere. 


THE  CAROLING/AN  EMPIRE  49 


The  Papacy  and  the  Later  Carolingians 
The  far-sighted  plans  of  the  emperor  collapsed 
under  the  weak  rule  of  his  successors  by  which  his 
Empire  was  divided.  During  the  whole  of  the  ninth 
century,  the  centralization  of  the  Empire  suffered  a 
process  of  disintegration;  the  apex  of  the  system  dis- 
appeared first;  what  was  permanent  was  the  scheme 
for  those  wide  cultural  activities  of  the  Church  which 
had  been  so  carefully  outlined  by  the  founder  of  the 
Empire.  Their  original  connection  with  and  de- 
pendence upon  the  State  was  forgotten  and  they  were 
taken  up  and  treated  as  if  they  had  been  always  the 
peculiar  prerogatives  of  a  centralized  autonomous 
religious  organization. 

Under  the  Carolingians  constructive  missionary 
work  went  on,  marked  by  the  creation  of  the  See 
of  Hamburg  (united  with  Bremen  848),  whose  first 
bishop  was  Auskar,  under  whose  auspices  Christi- 
anity  was  introduced  into  Scandinavian  countries. 
In  monastic  life,  Benedict  of  Agnani  (d.  821)  was 
zealous  in  enforcing  the  standards  of  his  namesake 
of  Nursia.  The  movement  initiated  by  him  was  di- 
rected against  Humanism,  which  had  found  its  chief 
supporters  in  the  monasteries,  and  in  place  of  edu- 
cational and  classical  ideals  he  restored  the  obligation 
of  manual  labor  as  the  chief  feature  of  monastic 
discipline. 

In  the  years  of  civil  strife  between  the  successors 
of  Charles,  the  clergy  stood  on  the  whole  for  the  side 
5 


50  MEDIEVAL  CHURCH  HISTORY 

which  proclaimed  the  necessity  of  national  unity,  but 
the  important  result  of  these  years  was  the  elevation 
of  papal  claims  which  rose  in  the  scale  as  the  imperial 
power  became  discredited.  The  superiority  of  the 
pope  to  the  emperor  began  to  be  freely  asserted,  the 
advocates  of  the  papacy  going  so  far  as  to  proclaim 
that  by  the  pope's  hands  alone,  through  the  ceremonies 
of  the  coronation,  could  the  imperial  dignity  be  validly 
conferred.  The  ideal  was  developed  of  a  Church  cut 
loose  from  all  dependence  upon  the  State,  ruled  by 
the  pope,  to  whom  belonged  all  power  upon  earth. 
This  conception  did  not  find  its  way  to  acceptance 
without  opposition;  even  in  the  time  of  the  weak 
Louis  the  Pious,  Charles'  heir,  the  attempt  of  the 
ecclesiastical  order  to  act  by  itself  was  strenuously 
resisted,  and  later  on,  in  the  same  century,  there  is 
more  than  one  instance  of  an  attempt  to  revive  the 
right  of  the  emperor's  supervision  over  all  elections. 
But  there  can  be  no  question  as  to  the  line  of  develop- 
ment; the  papacy  was  enforcing  its  claims  amid  an 
opposition  which  was  growing  weaker  and  less  ef- 
fective every  decade. 

Nicholas  I 

Nominally  the  Carolingian  Settlement  of  the  Church 
was  accepted,  but  it  was  being  slowly  undermined. 
The  social  and  political  conditions  of  Europe  proved 
its  inherent  weakness.  Northmen  and  Saracen  raids, 
the  former  along  the  west  line  of  the  Atlantic  and  the 
German  Ocean,  and  the  second  in  the  Mediterranean, 


THE  CAROLINGIAN  EMPIRE  51 

caused  terror  and  devastation  which  secular  rulers 
were  powerless  to  remedy.  In  the  western  division 
of  the  Empire,  as  the  chief  executive  failed  to  carry 
on  the  needs  of  government,  there  came  into  being  a 
system  of  inherited  local  functions  associated  with  the 
ownership  of  land.  In  this  situation,  landed  property 
meant  the  control  of  local  sovereignty,  and  the  rivalry 
was  so  sharp  for  its  possession  that  no  discrimination 
was  made  between  lay  and  church  property.  Unable 
to  secure  protection  from  a  weak  central  executive, 
the  bishops  and  abbots  sought  to  find  some  way  in 
which  they  might  stand  on  equal  terms  with  the  lay 
landed  aristocracy  in  order  to  maintain  their  hold  on 
church  property,  and  in  the  more  intangible  sphere 
of  moral  and  religious  influence,  place  themselves  in 
a  position  where  their  superiority  could  not  be 
questioned.  As  among  the  secular  nobility  there  was 
a  struggle  for  supremacy  between  the  count  and  the 
duke,  over  both  of  whom  the  authority  of  the  king 
grew  to  be  nominal,  so  between  the  higher  ecclesi- 
astics, the  metropolitans  and  the  bishops  of  their  re- 
spective provinces,  there  arose  a  contest  as  to  whether 
the  head  of  the  province  could  directly  depress  the 
diocesan  bishops  to  the  rank  of  under-officials  whose 
sole  function  was  to  carry  out  his  mandates.  Such 
in  effect  had  been  the  idea  of  the  Carolingian  Church 
system. 

The  question  became  acute  under  Archbishop 
Hincmar  of  Rheims,  who,  backed  by  the  royal  power, 
claimed  to  exercise  to  the  full  the  metropolitical  juris- 


52  MEDIEVAL  CHURCH  HISTORY 

diction  of  his  see.  In  his  province,  the  suffragan 
bishops  had  to  meet  this  double  combination,  and  they 
appealed  to  the  supreme  sovereignty  of  the  papacy 
as  superior  to  either  power.  The  discussion  merits 
some  elaboration,  because  it  gave  occasion  to  the 
celebrated  falsification  known  as  the  pseudo-Isidorian 
Decretals  (the  collection  of  Isidorus  Mercator,  851  or 
852).  Old  documents  were  refurbished  and  new 
ones,  presumably  of  great  antiquity,  were  produced, 
—  the  work  of  skilful  forgers,  who  aimed  thus  to  au- 
thenticate the  current  episcopal  arguments  against 
the  exercise  of  metropolitical  power, — but  the  freedom 
of  the  Church  from  lay  control  and  supervision  was 
just  as  emphatically  insisted  upon.  The  church 
organization  in  these  decretals  is  the  papal  system; 
every  case  of  importance  must  be  appealed  to  Rome; 
no  synodical  acts  can  be  validated,  no  synod  even 
called  without  papal  approval.  So  this  marvellous 
collection  gives  us  a  Church  in  which  the  pope  is  the 
virtual  creator  of  all  inferior  church  officers,  is  dog- 
matically infallible  and  is  the  corner-stone  of  the 
entire  structure. 

Such  was  the  system  which,  founded  on  forged 
historical  documents.  Pope  Nicholas  I  (858-867)  put 
into  working  order.  The  grounds  of  intervention 
were  nicely  chosen.  When  a  Carolingian  monarch, 
Lothair  II,  would  have  repudiated  his  wife,  his  act 
was  supported  by  the  episcopate  of  the  kingdom. 
The  pope  quashed  the  whole  proceeding  and  called 
Lothair's  bishops  to  a  full  accounting,  and  the  king 


THE  CAROLING/AN  EMPIRE  53 

himself  had  finally  to  submit.  The  next  step  was  to 
reduce  the  metropolitan  claims.  This  was  carried 
through  vigorously  when  Hincmar  deposed  one  of 
his  suffragans,  Rothad  of  Soissons,  at  a  diocesan 
synod.  Rothad  appealed  to  Rome  and  his  cause  was 
there  decided  on  the  basis  of  the  Forged  Decretals. 
Hincmar  was  obliged  to  give  way.  Troubles  with  the 
Saracen  invasions  on  the  coast  near  Rome  and  in- 
cessant strife  with  the  local  nobility  of  Rome  ob- 
structed further  advance  along  the  road  to  papal  au- 
tocracy. Nicholas'  successors  were  for  the  moment 
either  weak  or  opportunists,  and  the  traditions  of  his 
strong  rule  remained  quiescent.  In  France,  too,  the 
famous  decretals  were  forgotten,  but  precedents  had 
been  made  that  were  appealed  to  later  on. 

Conflict  with  the  Eastern  Church 

Not  only  in  the  West,  however,  was  Nicholas  in- 
tent on  maintaining  the  papal  prerogatives.  He  had 
on  his  hands  also  a  bitter  controversy  with  Constanti- 
nople on  questions  of  jurisdiction  and  the  relative 
rights  of  the  two  sees. 

Since  the  disintegration  of  the  Frankish  Empire, 
the  Slavic  peoples  in  the  East  had  looked  to  Constan- 
tinople as  their  religious  centre.  This  tendency  had 
been  helped  by  the  military  revival  in  the  East  under 
Michael  HI,  who  defeated  the  Bulgarians  in  the  Bal- 
kan peninsula.  Conspicuous  for  their  missionary  ef- 
forts, which  added  new  regions  to  the  Christianity  of 
the  East,  were  the  brothers  Methodius  and  Constan- 


54  MEDIjEVAL  church  HISTORY 

tine  (later  called  Cyril),  who  made  themselves  famous 
as  apostles  of  the  Slavic  race.  Constantine,  a  Greek 
by  birth,  became  acquainted  at  Thessalonica  with  the 
language  of  the  Slavonic  settlers  in  the  neighborhood. 
Through  his  knowledge  of  Slavonic  speech  he  pre- 
pared an  alphabet  and  translated  portions  of  the  Scrip- 
tures and  the  eastern  liturgy  for  the  use  of  the  con- 
verts. His  labors  were  soon  rewarded  with  success, 
as  he  was  ably  seconded  by  Methodius,  who  de- 
voted himself  to  the  work  of  organizing  the  new 
communities  (864).  Coincident  with  the  conversion 
of  the  northern  Slavs  in  Moravia,  Boghoris,  the  Bul- 
garian prince,  was  baptized  by  a  Greek  bishop  and 
was  followed  by  the  mass  of  his  people,  though  the 
introduction  of  Christianity  was  strongly  resisted  by 
the  nobility.  Boghoris,  probably  moved  by  political 
reasons,  entrusted  to  the  Roman  and  Eastfrankish 
Church  the  organization  of  the  Bulgarian  converts. 
Nicholas  I  was  not  slow  in  seizing  the  opportunity, 
and  the  Bulgarian  people  became  an  ecclesiastical  de- 
pendency of  the  Roman  See;  he  was  also  shrewd 
enough  to  enlist  Cyril  and  Methodius  in  the  ranks  of 
his  missionaries. 

This  intrusion  was  most  unwelcome  at  Constanti- 
nople, where  Nicholas  had  already  taken  a  hand  in 
the  dispute  as  to  the  legitimate  occupation  of  the 
patriarchal  chair.  Photius,  the  most  learned  man  of 
his  age,  the  imperial  candidate,  had  been  made  patri- 
arch by  the  Emperor  Michael  III  in  place  of  Ig- 
natius, who  had  proved  too  independent.     Called  in  to 


THE  CAROLINGIAN  EMPIRE  55 


act  as   arbitrator,  Nicholas  had  renewed  the  claims 
of  superior  rank  as  occupant  of  the  Roman  See,  and 
brought  about  the  return  of  Ignatius.     Photius  en- 
tered into  an  active  polemical  controversy  in  which 
he  attacked  the  Roman  theories  of  the  Church  and 
severely  handled  its  dogmatic  (filioque),  disciplinary 
and   liturgical   characteristics.      An   Eastern   synod 
was  called,  which  restored  Photius  and  passed  a  formal 
act  of  deposition  on  Pope  Nicholas.     But  this  act  was 
not  final,  for  by  a  revolution  which  overthrew  Michael 
the  tables  were  completely  turned  and  Photius  was 
again  forced  out  of  the  patriarchate.    Ignatius  took  his 
place,  and  the  acts  of  the  new  synod  validated  Nich- 
olas' decision  and  formally  accepted  the  Roman  pri- 
macy.    These  rapid  changes  produced  no  settlement. 
Though  John  VIII,  some  years  after  Nicholas'  death, 
was  willing  to  bargain  his  acceptance  of  Photius  as 
valid  patriarch  in  exchange  for  the  acknowledgment 
of  his  jurisdiction  over  the  Bulgarians,  who  had  in 
the  meantime  placed  themselves  under  the  Constanti- 
nopolitan  patriarch,  his  terms  were  rejected  and  fresh 
synodical  action  (879-880)  reversed  the   concessions 
made  ten  years  before  to  Rome.     There  was  a  schism 
again  in  881,  and  when  relations  were  restored  be- 
tween the  two  sees,  the  papacy  had  gone  through 
such  vicissitudes  and  reached  so  low  a  level  that  the 
effect  of   this  new  restoration  of   harmony  was  nil, 
for  Bulgaria   was    lost    permanently.      Among    the 
northern  Slavs  the  concessions  by  Rome  of  a  liturgy 
in   their   own   tongue  was  withdrawn,  and  the  Mo- 


56  MEDIEVAL  CHURCH  HISTORY 

ravian  Church,  as  a  result  of  the  Magyar  invasions, 
ceased  to  exist. 

The  Church  and  Feudalism 

The  ninth  century,  which  had  opened  so  auspicously 
under  the  Empire  of  Charles  the  Great,  drew  to  its 
close  in  an  atmosphere  of  anarchy  and  chaos.  The 
disintegration  of  all  centralized  power  was  hastened 
by  the  constant  terror  of  raids  by  Northmen  and 
Saracens  and  by  the  more  systematic  invasion  of 
hitherto  Christian  lands  on  the  part  of  the  hordes  of 
heathen  Magyars.  The  Church  shared  in  the  general 
ruin, —  discipline  was  relaxed,  organization  fell  to 
pieces,  bishoprics,  monasteries  and  churches  alienated 
their  landed  property  to  lay  landlords,  but  worse  still 
was  the  utter  demoralization  that  affected  the  whole 
social  structure.  Barbarous  deeds  and  the  grossest 
forms  of  self-interest  characterized  every  class  of 
society;  bishops  treated  the  property  of  the  Church  as 
their  own  personal  possessions,  and  in  every  way 
stood  on  the  same  moral  level  as  their  neighbors,  the 
great  landed  proprietors.  Where  the  royal  authority 
was  better  preserved,  as  among  Eastern  Franks,  that 
is  the  Germanic  portions  of  what  had  been  the 
Carolingian  Empire,  the  situation  was  somewhat 
better. 

In  Italy,  where  the  forces  of  political  disintegration 
were  actively  at  work,  nothing  can  be  more  perplexing 
than  to  try  to  sum  up  the  religious  situation.  South- 
ern Italy  can  be  eliminated  because  it  was  under  the 


THE  CAROLING/AN  EMPIRE  57 


control  of   the  Constantinopolitan  patriarchate.     In 
northern  Italy  the  archbishop  of  Milan  began  to  take 
foremost  rank  as  the  active  head  of  the  Italian  episco- 
pate with  the  civil  jurisdiction  of  a  count  in  Lom- 
bardy;   further  south,  in  Tuscany,  the  Church  was 
kept  in  a  dependent  position  by  the  territorial  lords. 
Worst  of  all  was  the  situation  of  the  Church  in  Rome 
and    its  adjoining  territory.     As  imperial  authority 
in   the   city  disappeared   with    the  downfall  of   the 
Carolingian  Empire,  power  fell  more  and  more  into 
the  hands  of  the  local  nobles,  the  large  landed  pro- 
prietors either  in  or  near  the  city.     The  importance 
of  the  lay  proprietors  was  enhanced  by  the  need  of 
watchful,  effective  vigilance  against  the  repeated  Sar- 
acen raids,  which  caused  such  terror  that  the  Basilica 
of  St.  Peter  and  the  ground  near  it  was  walled  in  and 
became  what  is  still  known  as  the  Leonine  City.    After 
the  death  of  Pope  Formosus,  as  the  century  closed, 
the  situation  at  Rome  reached  an  unexampled  stage 
of  demoralization.     The  Roman  nobility,  and  more 
especially   the   women  members  of   the  aristocratic 
factions,  controlled  the  elections  to  the  papacy,  which 
became  the  prize  of  their  paramours  and  children. 
This  moral  collapse  affected  but  did  not  destroy  the 
constitutional  system  which  had  been  built  up  as  a 
support  for  papal    supremacy.     Papal    legates    still 
appeared   at   synods;   metropolitan   jurisdiction  was 
still  interfered  with;  the  pallium  distributed;  special 
privileges  and  church  property  records  were  still  sent 
to  Rome  for  registration  or  approval.     But  there  can 


58  MEDIEVAL  CHURCH  HISTORY 

be  no  question  that  the  years  into  which  the  Roman 
regime  sunk  so  low  that  it  well  deserves  to  be  called 
a  Pornocracy  (896-963),  meant  an  eclipse  of  the 
centralized  system  of  church  administration  for  which 
Nicholas  I  had  worked  so  hard. 

Alfred  the  Great 

While  religion  on  the  Continent  was  in  a  state  of 
decline  tending  towards  eclipse,  the  Church  in  Eng- 
land was,  through  the  genius,  good  sense  and  sturdi- 
ness  of  King  Alfred  (871-901),  preserved  from  the  un- 
happy influences  so  actively  at  work  in  neighboring 
lands.  The  Northmen  invasions  were  brought  by 
him  to  an  end,  and  those  who  had  come  into  the 
country  in  great  numbers  in  north  and  middle  Eng- 
land were  allowed  to  remain  on  condition  of  their 
accepting  baptism.  In  a  narrower  sphere,  Alfred 
worked  out  the  principles  of  Charles  the  Great ;  learn- 
ing was  renewed,  the  jurisdiction  of  the  English 
Church  extended  over  Wales  and  in  the  land  so  long 
harried  by  the  Danes,  and  numbers  of  church  build- 
ings were  constructed.  But  the  line  of  development 
departed  from  Roman  models ;  for  example,  the  asce- 
tic ideal  was  no  longer  popular,  the  Benedictine  rule 
was  neglected,  and  most  of  the  clergy  were  married, 
the  result  being  that  parish  property  was  treated  as  a 
private  possession  of  the  parish  priest,  and  so  fell  into 
the  hands  of  his  natural  heirs  and  relatives.  In  Ire- 
land and  Scotland  the  era  of  the  Northmen  invasions 
proved  a  time  of  storm  and  stress.     Monasteries  and 


THE  CAROLINGIAN  EMPIRE  59 

churches  in  Scotland  fell  into  the  hands  of  lay  pro- 
prietors, monastic  hermit  life  died  out  and  there  came 
to  take  their  place  groups  of  clerics  (Guides,  Dei- 
colae)  who  lived  in  community,  and  yet,  like  the  Eng- 
lish parish  clergy,  were  married. 

Doctrinal  Questions 

While  one  can  only  be  surprised  that  the  Carolin- 
gian  settlement  of  the  Church  lasted  so  short  a  time, 
the  picture  of  the  ninth  century  chaos  is  so  striking 
that  one  is  equally  surprised  that  the  effects  of  the 
Carolingian  renaissance  lasted  so  long.  There  were 
many  interesting  leaders  who  maintained  the  good 
traditions  of  the  humanistic  revival  of  Charles. 
Hrabanus  Maurus,  a  scholar  of  Alcuin  (d.  856), 
influenced  many  disciples,  among  them  Hincmar, 
(d.  882),  Paschasius  Radbert,  Ratramn.  The  first 
vigorously  defended  in  various  writings  his  position 
in  the  ''metropolitan"  controversy,  the  last  two  took 
part  in  the  question  of  the  Presence  in  the  Eucharist. 
Radbert  held,  and  he  was  the  first  to  develop  techni- 
cally the  thesis  that  through  a  miracle  in  the  Lord's 
Supper  after  consecration,  behind  the  sensible  ele- 
ments, there  is  to  be  found  the  body  of  the  Incarnate 
and  Ascended  Christ.  Ratramn  objected  to  the 
realistic  terms  in  which  this  miracle  was  described 
and  confined  himself  to  the  assertion  that  the  miracle 
was  of  the  spiritual  order,  while  fully  acknowledging 
the  existence  of  a  reality  in  the  consecrated  elements 
independent   of   the   faith   of  the  believer.     Almost 


60  MEDIEVAL  CHURCH  HISTORY 

coincident  with  this  eucharistic  controversy  was  a 
revival  of  strict  Augustinianism  under  the  leadership 
of  the  monk  Gottschalk,  who  put  Grace  in  a  primary 
place  above  Sacraments  and  Church.  This  led  to  his 
condemnation  by  the  Synod  of  Quiercy  (849),  but 
finally  the  Synod  of  Toucy  (860)  adopted  a  com- 
promise measure  which  was  satisfactory  to  Gotts- 
chalk's  adherents  because  it  connected  Grace  and  the 
Sacraments,  though  it  failed  to  be  accepted  by  their 
leader.  Agobard  of  Lyons  (816-840)  was  indefatiga- 
ble in  attacking  heathen  practices  and  all  tendencies 
to  a  religion  of  mere  mechanism.  While  all  other 
teachers  of  this  period  were  under  St.  Augustine's  in- 
fluence, John  the  Scot,  trained  in  the  Scotch-Irish 
Church,  came  into  contact  with  Eastern  monks  who 
had  taken  refuge  in  this  far-away  region  during 
the  course  of  the  Iconoclastic  Controversy.  His 
acquaintance  with  the  methods  and  sources  of  Greek 
culture  gave  him  a  commanding  position  at  the  court 
of  Charles  the  Bald  (843-877),  where,  as  the  head  of 
the  royal  school,  he  translated  into  Latin  the  works 
of  the  Pseudo-Dionysius,  the  main  source  of  Christian 
mysticism,  and  in  his  own  writings  on  dialectic  and 
in  his  mystical  theology  John  presented  the  tra- 
ditions of  Neoplatonism  in  a  Latin  garb.  He  was 
admired,  too,  as  a  master  of  strange  lore  and  un- 
familiar erudition,  but  he  created  no  permanent 
school,  nor  was  he  able  to  break  the  strength  of  the 
modified  form  of  Augustinianism  which  dominated 
Western  thought. 


CHAPTER  III. 

THE  CLUNIAC  REFORM  AND  THE  HILDE- 
BRANDINE  SETTLEMENT 

WITH  the  tenth  and  eleventh  centuries,  the 
Church  enters  a  period  of  reform.  To  under- 
stand this  development  it  is  necessary  to  sum  up  in 
a  few  generalizations  the  details  already  given  and 
the  changes  introduced  in  existing  conditions.  In 
Church  and  State,  centrifugal  movement  was  an  evi- 
dence of  the  self-consciousness  of  nationalism.  What 
from  one  point  of  view  was  disintegration  was  simply 
the  expression  of  Teutonic  ideas  which,  because 
of  the  political  expansion  of  the  Prankish  monarchy, 
became  predominant  in  Western  Christianity.  The 
Greco-Roman  traditions  of  the  earlier  period  of  the 
Church  were  abandoned,  and  just  as  the  civil  law 
of  the  Empire  disappeared  before  the  various  tribal 
laws  of  the  Teutons,  so  the  canon  law  of  the  Church, 
buttressed  and  expanded  on  Romo-centric  principles 
by  the  Forged  Decretals,  could  not  resist  the  demand 
for  autonomy  both  secular  and  religious.  Asceticism 
lost  its  hold  because  the  Teutonic  peoples  believed  in 
marriage  and  family  life.  Church  property  in  all  its 
forms  suffered,  it  may  be  claimed,  from  the  hand  of 
the  spoiler;  in  plain  language,  all  that  happened  was 
this :  that  church  property  was  treated  in  accordance 
with  Germanic,  not  Roman  law.     The  master  of  an 


62  MEDIEVAL  CHURCH  HISTORY 

estate  on  which  a  church  or  monastery  stood  looked 
upon  himself  as  its  owner  and  controller.  The  pro- 
prietor of  the  land  appointed  the  parish  priest  and 
the  abbot  and  used  the  church  property  as  a  source 
of  income.  In  the  coming  reform,  we  cannot  fail  to 
see  a  movement  against  the  Germanization  of  the 
Church  in  favor  of  a  restoration  of  the  Latin-Roman 
traditions  which,  with  the  new  interpretations  based 
on  the  Forged  Decretals,  reappear  in  the  Hildebran- 
dine  papacy. 

The  Genesis  of  the  Cluniac  Reform 

The  reform  began,  not  in  Rome,  but  in  the  Bur- 
gundian  monastery  of  Cluny,  which  after  being  freed 
from  lay  control  by  Duke  William  of  Aquitaine  in 
910,  was  made  an  autonomous  community  under  papal 
supervision  and  so  exempted  from  diocesan  jurisdic- 
tion. The  abbot  was  elected  by  the  community  and  it 
accepted  the  man  designated  by  his  predecessor;  so 
continuity  of  policy  was  maintained.  The  rule  was 
Benedictine,  but  modified  in  such  a  way  that  the 
regulations  were  not  strictly  ascetic;  obedience  was 
the  main  requirement,  and  strict  attention  was  paid 
to  the  observance  of  pilgrimages,  to  devotion  to 
relics,  and  to  belief  in  miraculous  intervention. 
Frequent  communions  and  the  practice  of  penance 
were  specially  emphasized  by  Cluny;  but  the  revival 
spread  by  influence  rather  than  by  authority,  for  it  is 
a  mistake  to  picture  the  Cluniac  monasteries  as  a 
centralized  system  of  communities,  controlled  by  the 


THE  CLUNIAC  REFORM  63 


abbot  of  the  original  foundation.     The   momentum 
and  expansion   of  the    reform    were  helped   by  the 
political  restoration  under  Otto  the  Great  (936-973)» 
who  brought  together  the  eastern  half  of  what  had 
been  Charles  the  Great's  empire,  with  considerable 
additions  to  the  north  and  northeast,  under  the  strong 
control  of  a  central  executive.     To  repress  the  move- 
ments of  the  nobles,  always  restless  under  an  overlord 
who   made  his  power  felt,  Otto  allied  himself  with 
the    great   ecclesiastics    of    his    kingdom,    who,    as 
opponents  of  the  lay  landed  proprietors,  had  the  same 
interests  as  himself.     The  relations  between  Church 
and  State  were  regulated.     The  rights  of  the  lay  pro- 
prietors—in this  case,  of  the  king  — were  expressed 
in  the  ceremony  of  investiture.     The  bishop  or  abbot, 
through  the  use  of  some  symbol,  was  admitted  into 
possession  of  the  church  property  and  so  expressed 
his  willingness  to  assume  the  ordinary  feudal  dues, 
including,  of  course,  the  obligation  of  warring  in  be- 
half of  the  overlord.     Secular  control  was  also  made 
manifest  in  the  regalian  rights  by  which  the  king  re- 
ceived the  income  of  the  property  of  the  see  or  abbey 
during  a  vacancy,  and  the  "spoliation"  right  by  which 
all  the  personal  property  of  bishop  or  abbot  reverted 
to   the   crown   on   his  death.     Candidates  for  great 
ecclesiastical  positions  were  selected  from  the  clergy 
trained   about   the   court;    they   became   the   expert 
servants  of  the  monarch  and  much  of  the  work  of 
administration  and  counsel  was  in  their  hands.     Fi- 
nancially  and   for   warlike   purposes  they  were  the 


64  MEDIEVAL  CHURCH  HISTORY 

backbone  of  the  monarchy.  So  national  was  the 
Ottonian  system  of  church  government  that  in  the 
tenth  and  eleventh  centuries  the  term  ''summus 
pontifex"  meant  metropolitan,  v^hile  the  words  ^^con- 
cilium generate  or  universale"  were  used  for  a  pro- 
vincial synod. 

The  military  success  of  Otto  gave  him  the  Italian 
crown  in  951,  but  it  was  ten  years  before  he  set  about 
to  rescue  the  papacy  from  the  ignoble  condition  into 
which  it  had  fallen.  First  of  all,  allied  with  John  XII, 
the  dissolute  young  son  of  a  Roman  noble,  who  was 
ambitious  to  extend  his  authority  over  a  large  terri- 
tory. Otto  was  crowned  emperor  by  his  ally,  and  con- 
cession made  as  to  territory,  income  and  ecclesiastical 
supervision.  As  emperor.  Otto  worked  for  the  re- 
vival of  the  Carolingian  claims  over  Rome  and  soon 
exercised  them,  for  the  young  pope  was  brought  to 
trial  and  deposed.  His  successor,  Leo  VIII  (963-5), 
was  nominated  by  Otto,  and  the  papacy  was  as  subor- 
dinate to  Otto  as  any  German  see.  But  in  Rome 
itself  the  emperor's  efforts  failed  to  break  the  power 
of  the  local  aristocracy,  which  continued  to  control 
papal  elections.  In  northern  and  central  Italy  mo- 
nastic reform  was  ably  championed  by  Nilus  (1005) 
and  Romuald,  who  re-introduced  the  community  life 
of  groups  of  hermits  (1027). 

The  Growth  of  the  Reform  Movement 

In  the  meantime  the  influence  of  Cluny  Wi^s 
spreading  in  France,  where  it  appealed  to  the  strict 


THE  CLUNIAC  REFORM  65 


religious  standards  of  those  who  gave  their  money  to 
monastic  foundations.     Important  in  this  connection 
was  the  introduction  of  a  more  careful  economic  ad- 
ministration in  the  reformed  communities;  they  made 
better  use  of  their  property  and  so  they  could  attract 
a  larger  number  of  benefactors.     Great  abbeys  arose 
modelled  after  Cluny,  and  wherever  they  sprang  up, 
they  became  loyal  adherents  of  the  canonical  system 
contained  in  the  pseudo-Isidorian  decretals.     Natur- 
ally  the  desire  for  immunity  from  diocesan  control 
made  all  of  these  communities  advocates  of  a  central- 
ized organization  resting  upon  the  Roman  primacy. 
In  England  the  reform  had  found  an  untiring  advocate 
in  Dunstan,  Archbishop  of  Canterbury  (955-988),  who 
was  most  successful   in   recovering  church  property 
from  lay  occupiers  and   in   restoring  the  celibacy  of 
the   clergy.      After   the   accession    of    Otto   III   as 
emperor  (995),  Rome  itself  came  under  Cluniac  in- 
fluence in  the  person  of   Gregory  V  (996-999),  who 
made  use  of  the  Forged  Decretals  in  settling  the  case 
of  a  dispute  involving  the  archbishopric  of  Rheims. 
The   new    French   kingdom   of   the  Capetian   house 
(Hugh  Capet,  987-996)  was  largely  the  creation  of  the 
great  sees  of  northern  France,  and  Church  and  State 
were   there  as  closely  allied  as  under  the  Ottos  in 
Germany.      When   for   political    reasons    Arnulf    of 
Rheims  was  deprived  of  his  see  by  the  bishops  under 
Capetian    jurisdiction,   the    abbots    of    the    Cluniac 
monasteries  appealed  to  the  celebrated  decretals  by 
which  jurisdiction  in  such  cases  was  claimed  for  the 


6 


66  MEDIEVAL  CHURCH  HISTORY 

pope  alone.  The  bishops  in  vain  called  attention  to 
the  degradation  of  the  Roman  See.  Gregory  V,  sup- 
ported by  Hugh  Capet's  successor,  Robert  (996-1031), 
forced  the  new  incumbent  of  Rheims,  Gerbert,  the 
most  distinguished  scholar  of  his  age,  to  withdraw  and 
make  place  for  Arnulf.  When  Gerbert  became  pope 
under  the  name  of  Sylvester  II,  he  eagerly  seconded 
the  aims  of  his  patron,  Otto  III,  who  was  bent  on 
ruling  the  empire  as  Charles  the  Great  had  done,  and 
therefore  desired  to  keep  the  Church  under  firm  con- 
trol by  its  central  authority.  Vigorous  resistance  was 
made  by  the  German  episcopate  when  Sylvester  tried 
to  make  his  claim  good  about  a  question  of  juris- 
diction over  the  abbey  of  Gandersheim.  The  death 
of  both  pope  and  emperor  left  the  matter  undecided. 
The  Roman  See  again  became  localized,  and  the 
history  of  the  popes  who  were  the  creatures  of  the 
family  of  the  Crescentii  was  but  a  replica  of  the 
situation  at  the  close  of  the  ninth  century. 

The  Campaign  Against  Simony  and  Clerical 
Marriage 

The  new  stage  of  the  Cluniac  reform  is  on  a  larger 
and  more  successful  scale.  Robert,  King  of  France, 
leaving  the  episcopate,  which  showed  restlessness 
under  the  royal  authority,  worked  in  close  relation 
with  the  abbots  of  Cluniac  monasteries.  Among 
the  great  vassals  of  the  crown  who  were  practically 
independent,  many  became  eager  supporters  of  the 
reform  movement.     Northern  Italy  came  under  the 


THE  CLUNIAC  REFORM  67 

influence  of  the  movement,  and  in  rapidly  expanding 
Christian  Spain  the  monastic  reform  was  encouraged 
by  Sancho  of  Navarre,  Castile  and  Arragon  (970- 
1035)  and  by  his  son  Ferdinand  (1035-1056).  In 
Germany  the  movement  was  helped  by  Henry  II 
(1002-1024),  who  united  zeal  for  strenuous  discipline 
in  monasteries  with  a  policy  of  lay  control  over  their 
landed  possessions.  He,  however,  was  a  constant 
friend  of  Odilo,  abbot  of  Cluny,  and  made  it  his 
object  to  found  new  monasteries,  nobly  endowed, 
where  the  Cluniac  reformers  were  placed  in  control. 
For  a  time  the  current  towards  reform  in  Germany 
moved  strictly  within  the  limits  of  national  church 
ideals;  the  papacy  did  not  count  as  a  special  factor  in 
it.  The  important  change  produced  by  Henry  II's 
influence  was  the  extension  of  the  reform  to  the 
secular  clergy.  Stricter  views  of  discipline  became 
popular,  care  for  the  protection  of  church  property 
was  insisted  upon,  and  a  vigorous  campaign  initiated 
against  clerical  marriage,  a  subject  closely  connected 
with  the  disposition  of  church  property  when  held  by 
a  married  clergy. 

The  word  simony  had  come  to  be  used  to  mean  the 
financial  exploitation  of  church  property  or  religious 
functions  by  clerical  or  lay  owners.  The  legal  situ- 
ation of  the  Church,  its  connection  with  local  nobles 
and  with  national  monarchs  opened  up  many  avenues 
for  reproach  on  this  ground.  Bishops  or  abbots  were 
mulcted  in  large  sums  on  their  appointments;  this 
expense,  added  to  the  loss  of  income  caused  by  the 


68  MEDIEVAL  CHURCH  HISTORY 

alienation  of  landed  property  belonging  to  the  church 
foundations,  suggested  the  selling  of  official  services 
at  fixed  sums.  Bishops  on  their  consecration  had 
to  pay  the  metropolitan ;  the  clergy  were  treated  in 
like  manner  by  their  bishop;  parishioners  were  ex- 
ploited by  their  parish  priest.  Clerical  marriage, 
because  it  was  the  contradiction  of  asceticism  and 
also  produced  a  diversion  of  church  income  into  the 
hands  of  private  individuals,  became  along  with 
simony  the  chief  object  of  attack  by  the  reformers. 
Where  the  disintegration  caused  by  feudalism  was 
strongest  there  the  Ckmiac  party  met  the  greatest 
obstacles.  To  overcome  the  obstruction  of  the  local 
nobles  of  Aquitaine  against  the  condemnation  of 
private  warfare  and  feuds,  the  Synod  of  Limoges 
(1031)  instituted  the  "interdict",  by  which  the  re- 
calcitrants were  threatened  with  an  entire  suspension 
of  church  functions — no  public  services,  no  blessing 
of  the  marriage  tie,  no  religious  burial  of  the  dead. 
The  movement  only  attained  success,  however,  when 
secular  authorities  were  induced  to  add  their  help  and 
repress  by  force  the  disobedient.  In  this  way,  the 
Truce  of  God,  by  which  the  appeal  to  self-help  was 
limited  to  certain  days  in  the  week,  became  a  fixed 
institution  in  France. 

The  Champions  of  Reform  at  Rome 

Before  the  middle  of  the  eleventh  century  the  prop- 
aganda of  Cluny  had  won  its  way,  but  its  moral  ideals 
were  more  firmly  imprinted  than  its  political  and  con- 


THE  CLUNIAC  REFORM  69 

stitutional  principles.  The  self-consciousness  of  the 
clergy  as  a  separate  class  was  developed  by  the 
enforcement  of  higher  standards  of  service,  but 
nationalism  remained  firmly  entrenched  in  the  Church. 
The  governmental  platform  of  the  Forged  Decretals 
could  not  be  applied  so  long  as  the  papacy  itself  was 
under  the  control  of  local  Italian  landholders.  To 
change  the  situation  in  Rome  was  not  easy,  though 
the  religious  reawakening  in  Italy  generally  was  ad- 
vanced by  the  popularity  of  Walbert,  a  disciple  of 
Romuald  and  the  founder  of  the  great  hermit  com- 
munity at  Vallambrosa.  Even  more  effective  was 
the  influence  of  Peter  Damiani,  another  monk  trained 
under  Romuald,  who  as  a  writer  and  speaker  made 
impassioned  attacks  on  simony  and  proclaimed  as  the 
sole  cure  for  all  local  irregularities  the  exercise  of 
effective  leadership  by  Rome.  But  the  opportunity 
for  any  one  private  individual  bringing  about  a  change 
at  Rome  was  slight. 

A  fresh  impetus  came  from  Henry  III  of  Germany 
(1039-1054),  who  took  in  hand  in  1046  the  work  of 
introducing  Cluniac  measures  in  Rome  itself.  Bene- 
dict IX,  a  mere  boy,  the  tool  of  the  local  Tusculan 
faction,  had  as  a  rival  Pope  Sylvester  III,  who  repre- 
sented another  group  of  Roman  nobles.  Benedict 
tired  of  the  conflict  and  sold  his  claims  in  the  Roman 
See  to  a  respected  member  of  the  local  Roman  clergy, 
afterwards  Gregory  VI,  who,  though  regarded  as  the 
champion  of  the  Cluniac  programme  in  Rome,  did  not 
hesitate  to  procure  his   elevation   by   a   proceeding 


70  MEDIEVAL  CHURCH  HISTORY 

plainly  simoniacal.  This  was  in  1045;  the  German 
monarch  as  soon  as  he  appeared  in  Italy  summoned 
syonds  at  Sutri  and  Rome,  which  deposed  all  three 
popes,  and  at  Henry's  bidding  elected  a  German 
bishop  to  the  see.  Other  German  popes  came  in 
rapid  succession,  all  Henry's  nominees,  for  his  po- 
sition as  patrician  of  the  city  and  his  dignity  as 
emperor  gave  him  a  decided  voice  in  these  elections. 
The  demands  for  moral  reform  were  met  by  these 
changes,  but  they  did  not  break  up  the  dependence  of 
the  papacy  on  the  civil  power.  Another  step  forward 
was  taken  when  Leo  IX  became  pope  in  1048,  and 
stood  for  Cluniac  standards  in  their  widest  sense. 

It  was  Leo  IX  who  introduced  into  Rome  the 
pseudo-Isidorian  constitutional  theories  of  the  papacy 
in  relation  to  Church  and  State,  around  which  centres 
the  subsequent  history  of  the  mediaeval  period.  His 
programme  was  religious  reform,  political  independ- 
ence and  administrative  sovereignty.  In  Rome  itself 
this  meant  the  delocalization  of  the  city;  so  we  soon 
find  the  city  clergy  overshadowed  by  the  presence  of 
monks  from  all  parts  of  the  Church,  summoned  there 
to  carry  out  Cluniac  standards.  Among  them  was 
Hildebrand  of  Tuscany,  a  friend  of  the  deposed  Greg- 
ory VI,  who  had  shared  the  pope's  exile,  and  whose 
admiration  for  the  Cluny  leaders  was  well  known. 
The  restoration  of  financial  stability  was  as  necessary 
as  moral  reform.  By  making  the  Church  independent 
the  hold  upon  it  of  local  landlords  would  be  relaxed, 
especially  if  the  administration  of  the  property  of  the 


THE  CLUNIAC  REFORM  71 

see  were  in  outside  hands.  Leo  saw  to  it  that  the 
Roman  nobility  played  no  further  role  in  adminis- 
tration. These  local  transformations  were  accom- 
panied by  what  might  be  called  a  carefully  conceived 
international  propaganda.  Moral  and  disciplinary  re- 
forms were  no  longer  left  to  local  authorities.  The  pope 
himself  took  the  lead  in  person;  he  held  and  presided 
over  synods  in  northern  Italy,  Germany,  and  France; 
he  was  seen  consecrating  new  church  buildings,  dis- 
tributing relics,  granting  indulgences.  To  many  lay- 
men, therefore,  papal  authority,  visibly  active  in  the 
personal  presence  of  the  head  of  Western  Christianity, 
became  something  more  than  a  name. 

In  these  long  journeys  of  Leo,  the  local  episcopate 
was  brought  into  connection  with  the  See  of  Rome, 
and  the  bond  so  constructed  was  made  stronger  by  the 
holding  of  regular  yearly  Easter  synods  at  Rome,  at 
which  bishops  of  various  provinces  were  present. 
Different  methods  were  applied  in  different  regions; 
the  pressure  of  the  central  authority  was  more  strongly 
felt  in  the  French  kingdom  and  duchies  than  in  Ger- 
many. A  synod  was  called  to  meet  at  Rheims  in 
1049  without  any  preliminary  authorization  from  king 
or  noble;  members  against  whom  there  were  personal 
charges  or  who  remained  away,  were  summoned  to 
Rome.  But  no  such  independent  stand  was  taken 
against  German  nationalism;  the  Church  of  Mainz 
we  find  protesting  effectively  against  the  deposition 
of  one  of  its  deacons  by  the  pope,  and  Bishop  Gebhard 
of  Eichstadt  (1052)  succeeded,  as  the  champion  of 


72  medijEval  church  history 

nationalism,  in  preventing  the  emperor  from  giving 
armed  support  to  the  papal  scheme  for  armed  inter- 
vention in  southern  Italy.  Yet  when  Gebhard  himself 
became  pope  as  Victor  II,  no  change  was  made  in 
Roman  policy.  New  territory  was  handed  over  to  be 
under  papal  jurisdiction;  papal  legates  deposed  French 
bishops,  and  so  unselfishly  did  the  head  of  the  empire 
support  the  Cluniac  standards  of  church  autonomy 
that  Henry  III  renounced  for  himself  and  for  his  son 
the  right  of  intervening  in  papal  elections. 

The  Normans  and  the  Papacy 

How  much  could  be  and  was  accomplished  by  a  re- 
forming emperor  and  a  reforming  pope,  we  have  just 
seen.  Still  there  was  no  guarantee  for  such  cooper- 
ation in  the  future.  The  presence  of  Norman  ad- 
venturers in  southern  Italy  was  shrewdly  taken  ad- 
vantage of  by  the  papacy  as  offering  a  nucleus  that 
might  develop  into  a  permanent  bulwark  for  the 
papacy.  They  could  protect  it  against  interference 
from  the  local  nobility  of  Rome,  and  might  prove 
equally  serviceable  as  a  counterpoise  against  German 
influence.  Beginning  with  a  small  group  of  pilgrims, 
who  on  returning  from  the  Holy  Land  had  offered  their 
services  against  the  Saracens  in  southern  Italy  and 
Sicily,  the  Normans  first  acquired  a  small  territory 
between  Capua  and  Naples.  Their  success  attracted 
other  kinsfolk  from  the  north  of  France.  Warring 
against  both  Greek  and  Arab,  they  were  successful 
against  both.     By  the  time  of  Leo,  southern  Italy, 


THE  CLUNIAC  REFORM  73 


previously  in  Greek  hands,  was  ruled  by  Norman 
nobles  who  accepted  the  overlordship  of  the  German 
emperor.  The  next  stage  of  this  Norman  Conquest 
was  the  taking  of  Sicily  from  the  Arab  emirs,  a  process 
begun  in  1049  by  the  capture  of  Messina.  Leo,  who  by 
certain  territorial  concessions  made  to  him  by  Henry 
III  was  tempted  to  take  an  active  part  in  the  affairs  of 
the  small  principalities  near  Naples,  soon  found  him- 
self opposed  by  the  Normans.  When  an  army  was 
raised  to  force  the  claims  of  the  Roman  See,  the 
papal  troops  were  defeated  and  the  pope  himself  be- 
came a  prisoner  in  the  Norman  camp  (Civitate,  1053). 
This  experience  led  to  a  complete  reversal  of  papal 
policy.  Six  years  after  this  defeat,  Leo's  successor, 
Nicholas  II,  made  a  formal  treaty  with  the  Normans 
which  acknowledged  their  conquests  and  regularized 
their  titles,  in  return  for  which  Robert  Guiscard,  the 
Norman  duke  of  Apulia,  Calabria  and  Sicily,  ac- 
cepted the  pope  as  his  feudal  overlord  and  pledged 
himself  to  protect  the  Roman  See  against  its  enemies 
at  home  and  abroad. 

Valuable  as  was  the  pledge  of  Norman  aid,  it  might 
have  proved  onerous  by  itself,  for  it  tended  to  throw 
the  papacy  in  the  hands  of  one  single  secular  power, 
a  result,  as  experience  had  showed,  to  be  dreaded. 
Safety  lay  in  the  ability  to  play  off  one  state  against 
another.  The  possibility  of  pursuing  this  policy  was 
secured  by  the  rise  in  Italy  at  this  time  of  two  other 
political  factors  besides  the  Normans,  both  of  which 
exercised  a  decisive   role   in   the   struggle   between 


74  MEDIAEVAL  CHURCH  HISTORY 

papacy  and  empire.  There  was  the  beginning  of  a 
democratic  rule  in  the  free  towns  of  northern  Italy 
and  in  Tuscany,  a  powerful  state  had  arisen  under  a 
duke  of  the  house  of  Lorraine,  a  well-known  opponent 
of  the  German  imperial  family  who  had  married  Be- 
atrice, the  widow  of  the  last  margrave  of  Tuscany. 
The  growth  of  autonomous  towns  in  Lombardy  was 
due  to  the  increased  importance  of  trade  with  the 
Byzantine  east  that  followed  this  route  to  the  west. 
Previously  these  municipalities  had  been  under  episco- 
pal control;  now  the  artisan  and  mercantile  classes 
asserted  themselves.  The  conflict  was  racial  as  well 
as  economic.  The  bishops,  like  the  nobles,  were 
members  of  the  Germanic  feudal  aristocracy;  the 
lower  clergy  alone  with  the  industrial  class  came  from 
unfree  latinized  element  of  the  population.  All  the 
characteristics  of  a  social  revolution  were  present  in 
the  campaign  carried  on  in  these  Lombard  cities 
against  the  class  interests  of  the  landlords  and  the 
higher  clergy,  i.e.  those  who  possessed  or  controlled 
property  were  opposed  by  the  lower  class,  who  found 
in  the  platform  of  the  Cluniac  party — no  simony,  no 
married  clergy  —  a  most  convenient  watchword  in 
their  effort  to  remove  political  preponderance.  An- 
tagonism to  episcopal  control  and  desire  for  inde- 
pendence made  these  Lombard  towns  and  the  advo- 
cates of  centralized  ecclesiastical  power  natural  allies. 
The  death  of  Henry  III,  succeeded  as  he  was  by  a 
youthful  heir  who  did  not  come  of  age  until  1065, 
furthered  tlje  progress  of  the  Cluniac  party.     How 


THE  CLUNIAC  REFORM  75 

assured  they  were  of  victory  can  be  seen  from  a 
pamphlet  against  simoniacs  published  by  Cardinal 
Humbert,  who  with  Hildebrand  and  Damiani  stood  at 
the  forefront  of  the  reformers.  He  proclaimed  that  in- 
vestiture must  be  done  away  because  it  was  a  symbol 
of  the  dependence  of  the  Church  on  the  State.  In 
the  ownership  of  its  property  and  of  the  income  pro- 
ceeding from  it,  the  Church  must,  he  said,  be  freed 
from  connection  with  secular  rulers,  landlords,  and 
even  tenants.  Ecclesiastics  who  did  not  maintain 
these  austere  standards  were  to  be  deposed  and  their 
acts  of  consecration  to  be  held  invalid.  It  was  obvi- 
ous that  such  a  reform  could  only  be  carried  in  the  face 
of  princely  and  prelatical  class  interests  by  making  the 
pope  arbiter  of  cases  involving  all  simoniacal  trans- 
actions. What  is  more  significant,  only  those  metro- 
politans were  to  be  appointed  to  sees  who  had  the 
previous  consent  of  the  pope;  if  his  directions  were 
not  carried  out  the  people  were  to  be  urged  to  enforce 
papal  commands  against  their  rulers,  civil  and  eccle- 
siastical. In  this  way,  the  foundations  were  laid  for 
a  system  aimed  to  be  a  concrete  realization  of  St. 
Augustine's  City  of  God,  nor  was  there  any  hesitation 
in  carrying  out  these  principles  to  their  definite  con- 
clusion. 

Cluniac  Aims  and  Ideals 

The  reformers  saw  that  church  independence  spelt 
church  sovereignty  concentrated  in  the  pope,  who  as 
ruler  of   the   Church   was   sovereign   of   the   world. 


76  MEDIEVAL  CHURCH  HISTORY 

When  Gerhard  of  Florence  became  pope  in  1059, 
Hildebrand  placed  on  the  pontiff's  head  the  imperial 
crown.  Only  by  a  ruler  who  was  the  actual  overlord 
of  cities  and  territories  could  such  rights  be  main- 
tained. Treaties  with  allied  states,  feudal  or  demo- 
cratic, were  not  enough.  The  legends  of  the  Con- 
stantinian  donation  were  revived  and  the  return  to  the 
Bishop  of  Rome  of  his  territorial  possessions  in  the 
Italian  peninsula  and  the  neighboring  islands  was  de- 
manded. Along  with  the  imperial  crown,  Nicholas  II 
also  wore  the  royal  crown  to  indicate  his  right  as  an 
immediate  ruler  in  middle  and  southern  Italy.  The 
activities  of  these  years  were,  however,  not  confined 
to  picturesque  ceremonial.  Measures  were  passed 
regulating  with  great  care  details  of  local  adminis- 
tration, in  order  to  frustrate  any  attempt  on  the  part 
of  the  local  authorities  to  regain  control  of  papal 
elections.  By  the  decrees  of  the  Easter  synod  of 
1059,  the  determining  factor  in  nominating  and  elect- 
ing a  new  pope  became  the  cardinals,  i.e.  the  clergy 
of  the  chief  parishes  of  the  city  along  with  the  bish- 
ops of  small  adjoining  sees,  the  so-called  suburbicarian 
titles.  All  that  was  left  to  the  laity  of  the  city,  great 
and  small,  was  the  right  of  ceremonial  af^rmation. 
Next  year  another  synod  did  away  with  the  obligation 
of  the  imperial  consent  before  the  enthronement  of  a 
pope.  Such  were  the  measures  which  gave  a  consti- 
tutional foundation  to  papal  independence. 

Centralized  autocratic  rule  was  further  assured  by 
the  sending  of  legates  to  act  as  the  pope's  official  repre- 


THE  CLUNIAC  REFORM  77 


sentatives  at  local  synods.     A  cardinal  or  other  high 
dignitary  trained  in  the  centre  of  Roman  adminis- 
tration was  selected  for  this  post.     Pressure  was  put 
upon  the  occupants  of  the  metropolitan  sees  to  appear 
personally  at  Roman  local  synods.     So  we  find  Arch- 
bishop Wido  of  Milan,  because  of  Damiani's  clever 
handling  of  local  politics,  glad  to  sacrifice  his  claims 
of  independence  when  the  democratic  opposition  to 
episcopal  control  became  too  strong,  and  appearing  at 
a  Roman  synod  to  receive  directions  from  the  pope. 
Loyalty  to  the  papacy   was   guaranteed  by   an   oath 
sworn  to  by  Wido  and  other  metropolitans  in  which 
obedience  was  specifically  promised  to  papal  legates, 
an  engagement  ratified  by  personal  appearance  each 
year  or  through  deputy  at  the  Roman  synod.     There 
was   now  no  obscurity  as  to  the  meaning  of   these 
various  decrees;   those  who  were  affected  by  them 
proceeded  to  organize  an  opposition.     Roman  nobles, 
Lombard    bishops    and    the   officials   of  the  imperial 
court  in  Germany  refused  to  recognize  Alexander  II 
as  pope,  whose  election  followed  the  new  model,  and 
an  anti-pope  was  set  up  in  his  stead.     But  changes 
in  the  regency  in  Germany,  the  queen-mother  being 
superseded  by  a  group  of  episcopal  guardians,  brought 
about  a  change  of  policy,  with  the  result  that  the  anti- 
pope  was  abandoned. 

The  Cluniac  party  was  successful  generally;  it 
forced  through  with  the  help  of  the  local  Milanese 
democracy  the  right  of  appointment  to  the  see  in- 
dependently of  lay  consent.     Closely  allying  himself 


78  MEDIEVAL  CHURCH  HISTORY 

with  the  nobility  of  southern  France,  Alexander  II 
found  a  ready  support  against  Philip  I,  the  Capetian 
king,  who  was  an  old-fashioned  believer  in  the  exploi- 
tation of  the  Church  in  lay  interest.  The  local 
French  nobles  were  easily  turned  to  the  pope's 
scheme  for  a  crusade  in  Spain  against  the  unbeliever; 
the  partisans  of  Cluny  found  there  a  chance  to  pro- 
mote their  own  propaganda  as  well  as  to  drive  out  the 
Moslem.  It  is  significant  that  the  date  of  this  cru- 
sade coincides  with  the  substitution  of  the  Roman  for 
the  old  West  Gothic  or  Mozarabic  liturgy.  Though 
the  king  of  France  was  apathetic,  it  made  little  differ- 
ence, for  the  territory  actually  controlled  by  him  was 
small.  What  was  more  important  was  to  secure  the 
support  of  the  Norman  Duke  William.  He  and  his 
duchess  were  known  as  ardent  supporters  of  Cluny 
and  its  plan  for  papal  reform.  Nothing  was  likely 
therefore  to  produce  more  immediate  results  than  for 
Alexander  to  side  with  William  in  his  claim  to  the 
crown  of  England.  The  ground  seemed  prepared 
here  for  a  great  subject  Norman  kingdom  of  the  north 
to  be  as  easily  secured  as  the  south  Italian,  now  ruled 
by  William's  kinsmen.  Three  papal  legates  helped 
William  after  the  conquest  to  organize,  or  rather  to 
Normanize,  the  English  Church.  But  the  Conqueror 
soon  showed  that  though  he  endowed  Cluniac  monas- 
teries, he  had  no  intention  of  ruling  his  duchy  or  his 
newly  won  kingdom  according  to  the  new  system 
of  church  control  discovered  by  Damiani  and  Hilde- 
brand.     In  other  places,  notably  among  Bohemians 


THE  CLUNIAC  REFORM  79 

and  Hungarians,  the  propaganda  was  more  successful; 
here  there  was  an  opportunity  to  claim  these  terri- 
tories as  fiefs  of  the  Holy  See  because  they  were 
conquests  made  from  paganism.  In  Germany,  the 
campaign  against  metropolitan  authority  went  on 
systematically. 

HiLDEBRAND  AS   PoPE 

When  Hildebrand  himself  became  pope  in  1073 
with  the  title  of  Gregory  VII,  a  strong  foundation  had 
been  laid  theoretically  and  concretely  for  papal  abso- 
lutism. Its  representative  was  prepared  to  push  the 
whole  system  to  its  relentless  conclusion.  The  first 
great  problem  was  the  German  Church,  governed  as 
it  was  by  national  traditions,  and  confident  of  imperial 
support.  Gregory  first  moved  diplomatically ;  he  even 
asked  the  young  emperor  Henry  IV's  consent  to  his 
election,  but  at  the  same  time  went  quietly  along 
suspending  and  deposing  German  bishops.  The  pope, 
too,  probably  hesitated  to  adopt  more  extreme  meas- 
ures because  the  territorial  expansion  of  the  Normans 
in  Italy  worried  him.  He  was  fearful  of  seeing  his 
capital  become  a  mere  enclave  in  Norman  terri- 
tory. When  the  investiture  decree  was  extended  in 
1075  to  all  German  sees,  Gregory  kept  it  secret  and 
was  prepared  to  compromise  with  the  emperor.  But 
the  pope's  opportunity  was  not  long  in  coming.  An 
attempt  of  Henry's  counsellors  to  build  up  a  strong 
territorial  bulwark  for  the  royal  executive  in  Saxony, 
where  he  could  be  independent  of  both  bishop  and 


MEDIEVAL  CHURCH  HISTORY 


noble,  excited  the  suspicion  of  these  two  classes  of 
magnates.  A  revolt  ensued  against  the  emperor. 
But  the  immediate  cause  of  the  break  between  em- 
peror and  pope  came  over  the  question  of  filling  the 
See  of  Milan.  When  Henry  attempted  to  elevate  his 
candidate,  the  pope  threatened  excommunication. 
Henry  replied  by  a  decree  from  a  German  synod 
(Worms,  1070)  which  deposed  the  pope.  Gregory 
immediately  pronounced  the  decree  of  excommuni- 
cation, suspended  the  king  from  his  throne  and  re- 
leased all  his  subjects  from  their  oaths  of  obedience. 
So  began  a  conflict  which  shook  the  German  monarchy 
to  its  foundations  for  a  period  of  twenty  years. 

The  issue  was  no  simple  one;  its  social  and  eco- 
nomic sides  were  as  important  as  its  relations  with 
divergent  juristic  conceptions  of  State  and  Church. 
The  Cluniac  papacy  allied  itself  with  every  element 
that  advocated  social  change.  The  conditions  in 
Milan  already  referred  to  were  symptomatic.  Greg- 
ory Vn  undertook  in  a  masterly  way  to  utilize  the 
chaotic  and  hierarchic  administration  of  a  feudalized 
state  with  its  varied  spheres  of  self-interest  for  the 
advantage  of  a  world-wide  policy  of  absolutism. 
Peoples  arrayed  against  their  overlord,  the  antago- 
nism of  the  lower  class  against  the  propertied  class, 
the  fear  felt  by  the  small  propertied  class  for  the 
richer  landlords,  all  were  to  produce  supporters  for 
the  papacy.  One  great  emotional  weapon  was  the 
interdict  which,  when  applied,  spelt  the  ruin  of  social 
religion.     All  manner  of   political   and    national  al- 


THE  CLUNIAC  REFORM  81 

liances  were  forged  to  protect  the  papal  dominion 
from  being  overrun  by  its  enemies,  but  this  was  only 
partly  successful.  By  the  side  of  the  humiliation  of 
the  emperor  at  Canossa  must  be  placed  the  invasion  of 
papal  territory  by  the  German  army,  when  the  pope 
only  escaped  capture  by  being  rescued  by  the  Nor- 
mans. 

The  New  Papal  Machinery  at  Work 

All  the  expedients  required  to  revolutionize  a 
nationally  and  locally  organized  ecclesiastical  system 
were  applied  with  the  untiring  industry  of  a  fanatic. 
Gregory  had  the  relentless  logic  of  a  French  Revo- 
lutionist. Metropolitan  rights  were  shattered  and 
in  their  place  all  that  appertained  to  the  supervision 
of  dioceses  fell  into  the  hands  of  the  pope.  Elections 
to  the  diocesan  episcopate  were  superseded  by  ap- 
pointment at  the  pope's  hand,  and  he  could  translate 
any  bishop  from  one  see  to  another  or  depose  him. 
In  France,  almost  all  of  the  metropolitan  bishops 
were  either  deposed,  suspended  or  banished.  Syn- 
odical  action  was  under  the  direction  of  papal  officials; 
no  new  canons  could  be  passed  without  their  consent, 
and  to  the  tribunal  of  the  pope  there  was  an  appeal 
for  all  so-called  causce  majores,  i.e.  matters  relating  to 
the  episcopate.  Plans  equally  effective  were  made  to 
destroy  the  autonomy  of  the  episcopate  itself.  The 
pope  was  given  the  right  to  ordain  a  parish  priest  for 
any  church,  and  to  exercise  supervision  over  him  in 
the  exercise  of  his  parochial  charge.  It  was  made 
7 


82  MEDIEVAL  CHURCH  HISTORY 

possible  also  for  anyone  to  appeal   against   the   de- 
cision of  his  bishop  to  the  pope  as  the  final  judge. 

Various  measures  were  passed  to  make  more  effect- 
ive the  freedom  of  church  property  of  every  kind 
from  lay  control.  Thus  were  turned  over  to  papal  ad- 
ministration the  ownership  and  use  of  all  possessions 
devoted  to  religious  purposes,  and  in  this  way  the 
executive  of  the  church  had  a  source  of  income,  which 
in  the  then  condition  of  society  was  almost  unlimited 
in  extent.  In  addition  to  these  financial  resources, 
it  gave  to  the  papacy  a  claim  on  the  military  power, 
which  under  feudal  tenure  was  attached  to  the  pos- 
sessor of  all  landed  estates.  The  pope  was  asserted  to 
be  the  supreme  feudal  overlord  of  vast  national  terri- 
tories. The  emperor  himself,  it  was  claimed,  was 
the  liegeman  of  the  pope,  i.e.  he  owed  his  position 
to  the  good-will  af  St.  Peter.  This  personal  relation 
of  vassal  to  overlord  was  extended  from  the  lands  held 
by  the  Normans  — Apulia,  Calabria,  and  Sicily  —  to 
Sardinia,  Corsica,  the  greater  part  of  central  Italy, 
Spain,  Hungary,  Saxony,  England,  Denmark,  Pro- 
vence, the  Russian  principality,  Dalmatia,  and  Bo- 
hemia. But  there  were  no  limits  to  the  more  general 
claims  of  sovereign  power.  As  the  heir  of  St.  Peter, 
Gregory  declared  himself  to  be  the  lord  of  every 
earthly  kingdom,  with  the  right  to  depose  royal  and 
princely  potentates  throughout  the  entire  Christian 
world.  Only  by  its  regular  relation  to  the  Church 
did  any  state  secure  its  right  to  exist,  for  by  itself, 
without  the  saving  influence  of  the  Church,  secular 


THE  CL  UNI  A  C  REFORM  83 

power  was,  because  of  its  origin,  entirely  godless, 
since  it  was  based  on  deeds  of  violence.  As  pre- 
cedents for  these  claims,  the  pseudo-Isidorian  de- 
cretals were  cited.  Since  the  principles  established 
by  them  might  be  indefinitely  extended,  the  pope 
could  affirm  his  right  to  initiate  new  legislation, 
of  the  need  for  which  he  alone  was  the  supreme 
judge. 

Such  was  the  outline  of  the  magnificent  theocracy 
Gregory  VII  championed;  what  he  actually  accom- 
plished, great  as  it  was,  fell  short  of  his  ideal.  The 
reform  movement  in  its  deepest  principles  became 
fixed  in  the  minds  of  large  masses  of  the  population. 
It  was  no  longer  a  question  whether  the  clergy  should 
be  celibate  or  not.  Monastic  standards  were  ac- 
cepted; money  was  no  longer  paid  for  consecration 
and  ordination;  clergy  and  monks  no  more  engaged 
in  trade  and  commerce,  one  result  being  that  the 
Cluniac  movement  was  largely  responsible  for  the 
financial  activities  of  the  Jews.  In  public  worship, 
the  acceptance  of  Gregory's  centralized  rule  led  to 
the  disappearance  of  local  liturgical  uses,  all  of 
which  were  from  now  on  overshadowed  by  the  ritual 
of  the  local  Roman  Church.  Politically,  the  conflict 
with  the  State  failed  to  secure  the  victory  of  the  papal 
programme.  In  many  cases  the  constant  pressure 
from  the  central  ecclesiastical  power  produced  a  dis- 
tinct reaction.  By  the  time  of  Henry  V,  i.e.  at  the 
end  of  the  eleventh  century,  even  the  use  of  the  in- 
terdict failed  to  produce  its  ordinary  effect. 


84  MEDIEVAL  CHURCH  HISTORY 

The  Concordat  of  Worms 

As  an  engine  for  ordering  the  whole  of  society 
along  theocratic  lines,  the  Hildebrandine  programme 
was  admirably  conceived,  yet  it  failed  where  its 
creator  meant  it  to  succeed.  Henry  V,  common- 
place as  he  was,  was  capable  of  stubborn  and  pro- 
longed resistance,  and  William  the  Conqueror  with- 
out any  appeal  to  arms  defeated  the  Hildebrandine 
scheme  for  the  reorganization  of  the  Church  of  Eng- 
land. He  allowed  Lanfranc,  the  Archbishop  of 
Canterbury,  to  introduce  disciplinary  reforms,  but 
he  preserved  the  right  of  investiture  over  abbeys 
and  bishoprics,  refused  to  exempt  the  clergy  from  the 
jurisdiction  of  the  secular  courts,  collected  tithes  from 
and  imposed  feudal  dues  on  ecclesiastical  property, 
forbade  appeals  to  Rome,  retained  for  the  Crown  the 
right  of  recognizing  the  pope,  and  without  the  king's 
consent  no  excommunication  of  crown  vassals  was 
permitted.  William  H  pursued  with  irritating 
crudeness  the  same  ecclesiastical  policy.  Anselm, 
who  followed  Lanfranc  (1089),  was  fully  in  sympathy 
with  the  Hidebrandine  standards,  and  seeing  his 
opportunity  at  the  death  of  William  H,  refused  to 
take  the  oath  to  his  successor,  Henry  I.  This  led 
to  a  long  conflict  over  the  investiture  question  in 
which  the  higher  clergy  of  the  land  ranged  them- 
selves with  the  king.  When  the  matter  was  finally 
arranged  in  1106,  the  substantial  gains  were  all  on 
the  side  of  the  monarchy.     The  king,  indeed,  con- 


THE  CLUNIAC  REFORM  85 

sented  to  give  up  all  the  symbols  of  investiture  (the 
ring  and  staff)  and  the  '^regalian  rights",  but  he  con- 
tinued to  be  the  legal  owner  of  church  property,  kept 
the  nomination  of  bishops  and  abbots  in  his  hands, 
was  the  only  authority  by  which  the  tenure  of  church 
land  could  be  validated,  and  exacted  from  the  clergy 
the  oath  of  personal  loyalty.  No  communications 
were  allowed  with  Rome  except  by  royal  warrant,  and 
a  like  condition  was  imposed  upon  the  appearance  of 
papal  legates  in  England. 

In  German  lands,  the  settlement  of  the  investiture 
conflict  took  longer.  At  one  time  (Concordat  of 
Sutri)  it  was  proposed  that  the  Church  should  be  made 
dependent  on  the  voluntary  contributions  of  the  faith- 
ful and  on  the  tithe  system,  in  return  for  the  con- 
cession by  the  secular  power  of  all  rights  of  investi- 
ture and  election  to  ecclesiastical  office.  This  pro- 
posal was  rejected  by  the  German  clergy.  Their 
national  leanings  and  the  high-handed  conduct  of  the 
legates  who  frequently  took  no  notice  of  instructions 
from  Rome,  brought  about  a  compromise  between 
Calixtus  II  and  Henry  V  at  Worms  in  1122.  It  fol- 
lowed virtually  the  lines  of  the  arrangement  made 
previously  with  the  English  monarchy,  but  modified 
according  to  the  relation  of  the  emperor  to  the  par- 
ticular territories  over  which  he  exercised  his  sover- 
eignty. The  secular  and  ecclesiastical  factors  in  in- 
vestiture were  carefully  distinguished,  i.e.  the  bish- 
op's functions  as  the  controller  of  church  lands  were 
kept  distinct  from  his  pastoral  functions  as  head  of  a 


86  MEDIEVAL  CHURCH  HISTORY 

diocese.  But  as  the  act  of  royal  investiture  had  to  pre- 
cede the  religious  ceremony,  the  king  had  a  practical 
veto  on  any  candidate.  A  significant  clause  appeared 
by  which  the  consecrating  authority  and  the  decision 
in  case  of  doubtful  elections  were  left  to  the  metro- 
politan of  the  province.  In  Italy  and  Burgundy, 
where  imperial  overlordship  was  more  vague,  the 
smaller  political  units,  cities,  courts  or  local  magnates 
came  into  ownership  of  the  church  property  belonging 
to  episcopal  sees.  Sometimes  it  was  invested  in  the 
particular  cathedral  itself.  In  southern  Italy,  the 
Norman  princes  maintained  even  in  the  face  of  papal 
protests  the  same  rights  over  the  Church  as  their 
kinsmen  in  England.  In  France,  though  outside  the 
imperial  jurisdiction,  the  arrangement  indicated  above 
was  adopted  in  all  its  essential  features. 

The  Concordat  contained  no  references  to  the 
larger  questions  of  church  polity;  no  recognition  of 
the  broader  theocratic  claims  of  the  papal  system  was 
asked  for  or  suggested.  What  this  arrangement  did, 
however,  was  to  include  a  clause  leaving  the  pope 
as  sovereign  of  the  ancient  Roman  patrimony,  i.e.  the 
territory  extending  along  the  coast  from  Monalto  to 
Terracina,  and  in  the  interior  from  Aquapendenti  to 
Ceperano.  With  the  recognition  of  this  sovereignty 
was  eliminated  all  question  of  investiture  of  churches 
and  sees  within  these  limits,  not  excepting  the  papal 
see  itself,  for  elevation  to  which  imperial  consent 
was  no  longer  required.  One  of  the  results  of  the 
Concordat  was  to  distinguish  between  church  build- 


THE  CLUNIAC  REFORM  87 

ings  and  church  property,  the  landed  estates  of  sees 
remaining  subject  to  the  conditions  of  the  feudal  law 
of  landholding.  Small  churches  and  abbeys  were 
not  included,  because  some  being  voluntarily  alienated 
by  their  lay  owners  to  the  church  authorities,  placed 
themselves  under  papal  protection  and  paid  a  small 
tax  to  the  pope.  But  for  the  vast  majority  the  rights 
of  the  lay  proprietor  were  maintained ;  he  received  a 
portion  of  the  income  derived  from  the  property,  while 
the  church  building  and  the  religious  functions  con- 
nected with  it  were  conferred  upon  a  particular  cleric 
whom  the  lay  owner  named.  So  arose  the  rights  of 
presentation  and  patronage  which  are  still  a  famil- 
iar feature  of  church  life  in  England  at  the  pres- 
ent day. 

In  the  Hildebrandine  church  system,  with  its  com- 
plicated mass  of  details,  it  is  not  always  easy  to  see  the 
wood  for  the  trees,  nor  to  distinguish  how  far  the  re- 
forming movement  succeeded.  One  thing  is  certain, 
it  left  in  western  Europe  two  conflicting  systems 
face  to  face,  each  with  a  specific  system  of  law  and 
each  presenting  a  different  type  of  political  theory. 
There  is  no  question  that  the  papacy,  beside  the 
advantage  it  had  from  its  representative  functions, 
as  the  incarnation  of  religious  institutionalism,  won 
support  because  it  took  care  to  make  its  position  in- 
telligible. While  the  various  national  states  had  no 
code  of  laws,  Rome  collected  its  legal  documents, 
genuine  and  forged,  and  made  this  collection  the  basis 
of  legal  training. 


88  MEDIjEVAL  church  HISTORY 

Missionary  Expansion 

The  advance  of  the  Cluniac  reform,  followed  im- 
mediately by  the  propaganda  for  the  Hildebrandine 
papal  rule,  occupies  for  many  years  the  central  field  in 
church  history.  But  the  internal  movements  of  the 
Church  should  not  obscure  the  importance  of  mission- 
ary expansion  during  this  period.  In  the  tenth  cen- 
tury, the  Slavic  tribes,  who  at  this  time  extended  as 
far  west  as  Magdeburg,  were  brought  to  accept 
Christianity.  Wherever  German  arms  were  success- 
ful, one  can  trace  the  foundation  of  new  episcopal 
foundations.  The  See  of  Posen  was  founded  in  966, 
and  not  much  later  we  find  a  bishopric  established  in 
Prague,  as  the  result  of  the  victories  of  Otto  II,  and 
in  Moravia,  both  treated  as  suffragans  of  the  Arch- 
bishop of  Mainz.  The  Hungarians,  too,  after  they 
had  been  defeated  by  German  armies  and  forced  to 
abandon  their  nomadic  existence,  were,  under  both 
Byzantine  and  German  influences,  brought  to  profess 
Christianity.  For  work  among  the  Scandinavian 
peoples,  Hamburg  became  the  chief  point  of  de- 
parture. Harold,  the  **blue-toothed",  was  baptized 
in  965,  which  led  to  the  baptism  en  masse  of  his 
people.  But  there  was  soon  a  pagan  reaction,  en- 
couraged doubtless  by  objection  to  German  influence, 
and  helped  by  the  lack  of  interest  taken  by  Otto  III 
in  matters  affecting  only  his  German  dominions. 

When  the  German  mission  suffered  an  eclipse,  the 
conversion  of  Denmark  was  taken  up  from  England, 


THE  CLUNIAC  REFORM  89 

where  by  the  fortunes  of  war,  Danish  monarchs  were 
establisned  (1016)  after  the  massacre  of  the  Danes 
living  in  England,  by  Ethelred  11.  Canute  (1014- 
1035)  undertook  to  combine  the  church  organization 
of  both  his  continental  and  his  insular  kingdom. 
Canute  was  loyally  supported  by  the  clergy  of  the 
English  Church,  who  saw  in  him  the  champion  of 
Christianity  against  paganism.  For  a  time  it 
seemed  as  if  Denmark  would  be  controlled  by  English 
missionaries,  but  this  influence  was  evanescent  be- 
cause of  the  persevering  and  finally  successful  efforts 
of  the  Archbishop  of  Hamburg  to  retain  his  metro- 
politan jurisdiction  over  the  Danish  mission.  English 
clergy  also  penetrated  into  Norway,  where,  through 
the  favor  shown  by  King  Olaf  and  his  intervention  in 
behalf  of  the  new  faith,  the  population  were  con- 
verted, a  transformation  which  affected  the  Scandi- 
navian islands  of  the  north  Atlantic.  In  Sweden, 
under  the  auspices  of  Anskar,  a  bishop  of  Hamburg 
in  the  Carolingian  period,  missionary  work  had  begun, 
but  only  feebly  and  with  no  enduring  result.  The 
systematic  expansion  of  the  Church  was  delayed  until 
the  time  of  King  Olaf,  who  was  baptized  by  English 
missionaries  in  1008.  But  when  the  first  bishopric 
was  founded,  it  was  placed  under  the  jurisdiction  of 
Hamburg.  The  connection  between  this  see  and 
the  Scandinavian  kingdoms  was  made  more  effective 
by  Adalbert,  the  Archbishop  of  Hamburg-Bremen,  in 
the  middle  of  the  eleventh  century,  a  man  gifted  with 
great  organizing  power  and   thoroughly  in  sympathy 


90  MEDIEVAL  CHURCH  HISTORY 

with  the  Cluniac  reform.  Bremen  became  the  re- 
ligious capital  of  the  northern  world,  and  for  a  while 
Adalbert  contemplated  making  his  see  a  patriarchal 
chair.  He  finally,  however,  had  himself  recognized 
as  papal  vicar  over  a  territory  which  extended  from 
Greenland  to  Finland  (1053).  Under  the  tribal  con- 
ditions of  the  Scandinavian  peoples,  an  interesting 
type  of  national  church  arose  with  a  popular  organi- 
zation. The  churches  were  built  by  the  king,  by 
committees,  or  by  individuals,  and,  in  accordance  with 
Germanic  law,  were  owned  by  them.  Both  the  bish- 
op and  priest  were  appointed  by  the  king  or  com- 
munity. The  support  of  the  clergy  came  from  lands 
appropriated  for  that  purpose  and  a  primitive  form 
of  taxation  and  fees  was  introduced.  There  was  none 
of  the  feudalization  of  the  Church  common  in  south- 
ern countries;  monasticism,  too,  made  little  impres- 
sion, and  grew  very  slowly. 

Growth  of  the  Oriental  Church 

With  this  list  of  remarkable  achievements  in  this  age 
of  Western  Christendom,  may  be  paralleled  as  coinci- 
dent with  it  chronologically  the  expansion  northward 
of  Greek-Christian  missions  brought  about  by  the 
marriage  of  the  Russian  prince  Wladimir  in  988  with 
a  member  of  the  Byzantine  imperial  family.  In  Rus- 
sian domains  the  Church  was  organized  according  to 
Greek  standards,  with  the  metropolitan  of  Kiev 
subordinate  to  the  Constantinopolitan  patriarchate. 
The  Slavic  scriptures  were  introduced  and  also  the 


THE  CLUNIAC  REFORM  91 

liturgy  which  has  been  before  mentioned  in  con- 
nection with  the  work  of  Cyril  and  Methodius. 
In  general,  the  relations  with  the  Western  Church 
became  more  strained  with  the  growth  of  the  Cluniac 
movement.  We  know,  for  example,  that  a  leading 
Cluniac  champion,  William  of  Dijon,  prevented  the 
acknowledgement  of  the  title  ''ecumenical  patri- 
arch" claimed  by  the  occupant  of  the  See  of  Con- 
stantinople. On  the  other  hand,  Michael  Celularius, 
Patriarch  of  Constantinople  in  the  time  of  Leo  IX,  a 
bitter  opponent  of  all  customs  and  doctrines  of  the 
Western  Church,  seemed  to  have  been  partly  responsi- 
ble for  a  violent  diatribe  written  by  Leo  of  Achrida, 
the  metropolitan  of  Bulgaria,  against  Roman  claims 
and  western  traditions,  which  was  sent  to  one  of  the 
bishops  in  the  Byzantine  portion  of  southern  Italy. 
This  work  having  become  known  to  Leo  IX,  was 
answered  by  him,  with  the  same  spirit  in  which  it  had 
been  composed,  in  a  document  sent  directly  to  Mi- 
chael. This  discussion  happened  to  reach  a  climax 
when  Leo  was  organizing  his  expedition  against  the 
Normans.  With  the  purpose  of  interesting  the 
eastern  emperor  in  the  scheme,  he  sent  two  agents  to 
Constantinople,  one  of  whom  was  Cardinal  Humbert,  a 
convinced  and  strenuous  supporter  of  the  Cluniac 
party.  Owing  to  the  overbearing  behavior  of  the 
papal  emissaries  and  the  anti-Roman  prejudices  of 
Michael  the  patriarch,  the  project  of  an  alliance 
between  pope  and  emperor  was  abandoned.  Finally 
a  bull  of  excommunication  directed  against  the  patri- 


92  MEDIEVAL  CHURCH  HISTORY 

arch  was  placed  on  the  high  altar  of  Sancta  Sophia  on 
July  i6,  1054,  and  so  began  the  permanent  separation 
of  these  two  ancient  communions  of  the  Christian 
Church.  Later,  events  connected  with  the  crusades 
only  intensified  the  mutual  antagonism. 

The  First  Crusade 

The  immediate  cause  of  the  strange  outburst  of 
religious  enthusiasm  which  stirred  large  bodies  of 
western  warriors  to  undertake  the  conquest  of  Pales- 
tine, was  due  to  the  rapid  rise  in  the  East  of  the  Sel- 
jukian  Turks.  In  the  years  following  the  opening  of 
the  eleventh  century,  they  had  mastered  the  Arabian 
Empire  and  rapidly  organized  their  own  sultanate, 
soon  to  become  the  chief  Moslem  power.  Much  of 
their  territorial  expansion  was  made  at  the  expense  of 
the  Byzantine  Empire.  By  the  close  of  the  century 
the  Greek  possessions  were  confined  to  the  coast  line 
of  Asia  Minor.  Palestine,  which  for  centuries  had 
been  in  the  hands  of  the  Arabs,  now  that  it  was  con- 
trolled by  the  more  'fanatical  Turks,  was  no  longer 
accessible  to  pilgrims  from  the  West.  The  desire  to 
rescue  the  sacred  sites  of  Christian  history  was  ac- 
centuated by  the  religious  revival  due  to  Cluniac 
teaching.  Just  as  potent  were  the  commercial  am- 
bitions of  towns  such  as  Genoa  and  Pisa,  which  saw  a 
chance  of  lucrative  profit  if  they  could  acquire  the 
eastern  sea  coast  cities  of  the  Mediterranean  in  Syria. 
Another  factor  was  the  growth  of  Norman  power, 
which,  after  being  extended  over  the  island  of  Sicily, 


THE  CLUNIAC  REFORM  93 

suggested  to  its  rulers  the  possibility  of  absorbing 
the  Byzantine  Empire.  Robert  Guiscard  planned  the 
conquest  of  Constantinople,  but  the  scheme  was 
never  carried  out  owing  to  his  death  (1085).  As  the 
Seljuks  became  more  threatening  the  eastern  em- 
peror asked  the  stronger  western  states  to  help  him 
keep  the  Moslems  in  check.  To  Gregory  VII  the 
scheme  of  eastern  expansion  was  especially  attractive, 
for  it  meant  increased  prestige  to  the  Roman  See  and 
most  probably  papal  control  of  the  great  eastern  patri- 
archate. 

The  actual  development  of  this  plan  was  not,  how- 
ever, taken  up  until  the  pontificate  of  Urban  II,  who 
a  few  years  after  Gregory's  death  proclaimed  at  the 
Synod  of  Clermont  (1095)  the  need  for  united  action 
on  the  part  of  western  Europe  to  rescue  from  the 
hands  of  the  Moslem  the  holy  places  of  Palestine. 
The  response  was  immediate;  warriors  from  Lorraine, 
from  the  various  countries  ruled  over  by  Norman 
princes,  and  representatives  from  the  great  French 
feudal  lords,  made  up  the  crusading  host.  While  the 
Greeks  retook  numbers  of  important  places  in  Asia 
Minor,  the  crusaders  proper,  using  the  land  routes 
over  countries  regained  by  the  Greeks,  penetrated 
into  Syria,  captured  Antioch  and  then  Jerusalem 
(July,  1099).  When  the  crusaders  proceeded  to  erect 
states  in  Syria  organized  according  to  the  feudal 
models  of  the  West,  Roman  ecclesiastics  hastened  to 
establish  churches  and  sees  within  the  limits  of  the 
crusaders'   conquests  which   were  placed  under   the 


94  MEDIEVAL  CHURCH  HISTORY 

jurisdiction  of  the  Roman  See,  and  followed  in  all 
respects  Western  usages.  No  attempt  was  made  to 
conciliate  the  already  existing  Eastern  Christians; 
accordingly,  both  ecclesiastically  and  civilly,  the  cru- 
sading states  remained  artificial  creations  without 
any  basis  of  permanence. 

Doctrinal  Development 

The  opening  up  of  the  Orient  to  direct  intercourse 
with  the  West  led  to  the  expansion  of  culture  as  well 
as  to  the  growth  of  commerce,  for  with  all  the 
activity  produced  by  the  propaganda  of  the  Hilde- 
brandine  papacy  much  had  been  left  to  do  in  ad- 
vancing the  intellectual  life  of  Western  Christendom. 
It  is  true  that  there  were  in  north  Italy  schools,  not 
only  frequented  but  taught  by  laymen,  which  prepared 
for  secular  careers.  In  France  the  intellectual  move- 
ment centred  around  Fulbert  of  Chartres  (d.  1029), 
whose  pupil,  Berengar,  famous  as  the  head  of  the  ca- 
thedral school  of  Tours,  drew  there  many  disciples, 
among  them  the  members  of  great  feudal  families. 
Berengar,  besides  being  the  reviver  of  both  classic 
and  patristic  traditions,  used  as  a  test  of  right  faith 
the  employment  of  dialectic,  and  justified  the  use  of 
reason  in  theological  speculation.  His  supremacy  as 
a  teacher  soon  became  challenged  when  men  trained 
in  the  frequented  schools  of  north  Italian  cities  mi- 
grated elsewhere  to  become  professional  teachers. 
Among  them  was  Lanfranc  of  Paris,  who  after  study- 
ing dialectic   and  law  there,   proceeded  to  found  a 


THE  CLUNIAC  REFORM  95 

school  of  secular  learning  in  Normandy  (1039). 
Won  over,  afterwards,  to  Cluniac  monasticism,  he 
entered  the  monastery  of  Bee  and  applied  his  training 
to  the  support  of  the  currently  taught  doctrinal 
standpoint  of  the  Western  Church.  With  Lanfranc 
may  be  said  to  have  originated  the  juristic  method  of 
handling  church  doctrines,  and  he  became  the  master 
of  such  acute  traditionalists  as  Anselm  of  Canterbury 
and  Ivo  of  Chartres.  The  two  schools  could  hardly 
continue  near  at  hand  without  a  conflict.  Berengar's 
views  on  the  Eucharist  were  attacked  by  Lanfranc 
and  afterwards  denounced  at  Rome  as  inconsistent 
with  the  conception  of  a  change  in  substance  after 
consecration.  Gregory  VII,  though  personally  friend- 
ly to  Berengar,  finally  yielded  to  pressure  from  a 
French  synod  and  demanded  a  retraction. 

This  controversy  was  but  one  indication  of  an  in- 
tellectual and  cultural  revival  which  soon  placed 
France  at  the  head  of  western  Europe  in  all  that  con- 
cerned literary  expression  and  artistic  feeling.  The 
latinity  of  the  twelfth  century,  as  developed  in  France, 
was  extremely  good,  and  there  was  also  creative  power 
shown  in  the  poetic  work  of  troubadours  and  by  those 
who  wrote  Latin  verse.  Specially  important,  also,  was 
the  influence  of  the  various  French  cathedral  schools 
on  the  systematic  development  of  canon  law.  The 
extent  of  the  new  influences  that  came  over  society, 
may  be  measured  by  the  growth  of  the  new  adminis- 
trative ideals  for  his  well-regulated  kingdom  encour- 
aged by  the  Capetian  monarch,  Louis  VI,  by  the  rise 


96  MEDIEVAL  CHURCH  HISTORY 

of  communes,  by  the  origination  of  the  guild  system, 
which  revealed  the  aim  of  the  middle  and  working 
classes  to  take  the  first  place  in  the  management  of 
the  local  community.  In  this  social  evolution  the 
actual  cooperation  of  the  Church  cannot  be  accurately 
determined.  In  some  places  the  middle  classes 
found  in  the  Church  a  valuable  ally  against  the  large 
landed  proprietor  and  the  local  nobility.  In  others, 
notably  in  France,  the  communal  rights  were  opposed 
by  bishops  and  abbots,  with  the  result  that  the  inhabi- 
tants of  the  towns  came  to  regard  the  monarchs  as 
their  natural  ally  against  the  claims  of  ecclesiastical 
lords. 

St.  Bernard  and  Monasticism 

In  spite  of  the  Hildebrandine  exaltation  of  theocratic 
principles  and  the  transference  of  these  axioms  into 
the  administrative  machinery  of  the  Church,  the  work 
of  carrying  on  the  reform  movement  begun  at  Cluny 
in  the  twelfth  century  did  not  devolve  upon  the  papacy 
but  was  directed  by  individual  champions,  backed  by 
no  high  social  position.  Chief  among  these  leaders 
was  St.  Bernard  of  Clairvaux,  who  proved  himself 
stronger  than  any  ecclesiastical  institution,  and  by 
sheer  moral  force  guided  civil  rulers,  even  over- 
shadowing, by  his  personal  influencee,  the  papacy 
itself.  Born  in  1091  of  a  noble  family  in  the  neighbor- 
hood of  Dijon,  Bernard  by  his  devotion  to  monastic 
ideals  represents  their  extension  to  all  the  interests  of 
his  day.     No  detail  of  church  life  escaped  his  view — 


THE  CL  UN  I  A  C  REFORM  97 

he  was  a  preacher,  a  politician  and  a  theological  dis- 
putant. He  organized  a  new  crusade,  but,  in  relation  to 
the  papacy,  he  took  up  the  role  of  Cato  the  Censor  in 
exposing  its  official  abuses,  criticized  its  secularized 
machinery  and  imposed  upon  the  Curia  his  concep- 
tions of  law  and  government.  To  everyone  and  to 
every  class  he  applied  the  touchstone  of  an  austere 
system  of  morality,  and  there  was  no  subject  which  he 
did  not  discuss  authoritatively.  As  a  monastic  re- 
former, Bernard  saw  the  danger  of  material  pros- 
perity. The  Cluniac  monasteries  had  been  too 
popular.  They  suffered  from  the  deterioration  caused 
by  the  gifts  of  property  made  by  wealthy  patrons. 

The  reaction  against  the  over-lax  rulers  of  Cluny 
was  started  first  by  Robert  of  Champagne,  the  founder 
of  the  abbey  of  Citaux,  where  he  introduced  a  com- 
munity which  practised  the  hermit  life.  Real  vigor 
was  brought  into  the  movement  when  Bernard  and  a 
few  followers  joined  it  in  1112  and  founded  the  abbey 
of  Clairvaux  to  serve  as  a  model  of  strict  monastic 
discipline.  The  principles  of  the  order  were  a 
combination  of  severe  ascetic  practices  with  the  pur- 
suit of  manual  labor  in  gardening,  cattle  raising  and 
other  kinds  of  farm  work.  Literary  study  was 
discouraged;  to  make  this  career  a  reality,  un- 
cultivated and  wild  neighborhoods  were  selected  as 
sites  for  Cistercian  monasteries.  This  reform  was 
only  partial,  for  many  of  the  clergy  of  cathedral 
churches,  induced  by  the  privileged  position  they  en- 
joyed, continued  to  live  the  life  of  secular  landlords. 
8 


98  MEDIEVAL  CHURCH  HISTORY 

Treating  the  property  of  the  Church  as  if  they  were 
the  actual  owners,  and  dwelling  with  their  concubines 
and  children,  their  behavior,  when  measures  of 
restraint  were  attempted,  became  a  scandal  to  those 
of  stricter  views. 

Attempts  were  made  to  bring  these  irregular  com- 
munities under  a  fixed  monastic  rule,  Cluny  sometimes 
being  taken  as  a  model,  e.g.  by  Hugo  St.  Victor  (c.d. 
1 141),  but  the  most  successful  guide  to  reform  was 
found  in  Norbert  of  Xanten  (d.  11 34),  who  took  for 
his  collegiate  commuinties  the  rule  of  the  Cistercians. 
As  his  first  establishment  was  made  at  Premontre,  near 
Laon,  the  new  order  bore  the  name  of  Premonstra- 
tensians.  Regularity  in  the  choir  offices,  ascetic  prac- 
tices, preaching,  were  specifically  imposed  as  duties 
by  the  new  rule.  Unlike  the  Cistercians,  scholarly 
pursuits  were  encouraged ;  but  both  these  new  orders 
adopted  the  custom  of  having  a  special  class  of  lay 
brothers,  monastic  helots,  who  did  manual  labor  but 
were  not  full  members  of  the  community  (an  institu- 
tion, by  the  way,  established  for  the  first  time  under 
Cluniac  rule).  As  contrasted  with  Cluny,  the  Cister- 
cian monasteries  represented  an  ecclesiastical  aristoc- 
racy ;  each  abbot  was  supreme  over  his  own  monks ;  but 
all  the  Cistercian  houses  were  bound  together  in  a  kind 
of  confederation  as  they  were  spread  over  many  coun- 
tries. This  system  gave  them  a  strong  international 
position ;  the  general  chapter  of  the  order  served  as  a 
community  congress  toVork  out  and  apply  a  common 
policy.      Both  the  Cistercians  and  the  followers  of 


THE  CLUNIAC  REFORM  99 

Norbert  were  rigidly  opposed  to  lay  control  of  any 
kind.  They  were  not  even  subject  to  ordinary  ec- 
clesiastical jurisdiction,  and  by  standing  together 
they  secured  an  unusual  degree  of  autonomy. 

None  of  the  property  belonging  to  the  community 
could  be  leased;  all  land  was  worked  directly  by 
members  of  the  community.  Coming  into  posses- 
sion as  they  did  of  many  benefactions  and  attracting 
into  their  membership  people  of  all  conditions  of  life, 
they  controlled  a  large  and  intelligent  labor  force. 
They  were  able  also  to  direct  it  in  a  way  that  has  only 
been  achieved  in  our  day  by  the  great  captains  of 
industry.  Economically,  these  monasteries  were 
great  productive  centres,  where  improved  methods  of 
cultivation  were  applied  as  the  result  of  technical  ex- 
perience in  many  lands.  They  took  the  place,  also, 
of  the  modern  agricultural  or  technical  school  in 
promoting  improvements  in  tillage  and  in  subsidiary 
handicrafts.  In  fact,  from  no  source  were  greater 
contributions  made  to  the  financial  and  economic  sta- 
bility of  the  Mediaeval  Church. 

Beginnings  of  Scholasticism 

While  one  is  impressed  by  the  wide  appeal  made 
by  the  new  monastic  orders  because  of  the  field  opened 
in  them  for  the  development  of  individual  capacity,  it 
must  not  be  supposed  that  a  monastic  career  was  re- 
garded as  the  sole  occupation  for  those  who  did  not 
care  for  the  rough  life  of  warfare  or  who  desired  to 
escape  from  the  narrower  interests  of  the  trader  and 


100  MEDIEVAL  CHURCH  HISTORY 

merchant.  France,  as  we  have  seen,  was  the  centre 
of  a  revival  of  learning  which  soon  passed  beyond  the 
limits  of  the  schools  presided  over  by  either  Lanfranc 
or  Berengar.  There  was  an  opportunity  for  teachers 
and  students;  and  the  privilege  of  the  chair  was  open 
to  laymen  as  well  as  to  the  clergy.  By  one  of  those 
paradoxes,  seen  so  often  in  the  mediaeval  church,  the 
teacher  under  this  system  of  absolutism  had  imposed 
upon  him  very  few  restrictions  of  any  kind ;  there  was 
no  direct  supervision  on  the  part  of  the  superior 
ecclesiastical  authorities,  and  the  students  themselves 
were  allowed  a  large  measure  of  liberty.  Different 
directions  in  method  and  in  thought  were  the  natural 
outcome  of  this  free  atmosphere. 

Pure  intellectualism  was  the  mark  of  the  school  of 
Anselm ;  reason  by  a  series  of  necessary  deductions 
could  evolve  the  whole  faith  from  a  few  premises. 
In  the  central  point  of  his  theological  thought  stood 
the  theory  of  redemption  with  all  its  ethical  and  theo- 
logical implications.  So  far  as  his  age  was  con- 
cerned, Anselm's  influence  was  largely  that  of  a 
master  dialectician.  This  was  the  study  to  which 
most  minds  turned  with  greatest  enthusiasm.  The 
common  ground  of  such  training  were  the  logical 
works  of  Aristotle,  first  read  in  the  translation  of 
Boethius.  That  there  was  no  slavish  reproduction 
of  ancient  models  may  be  seen  from  the  work  of  Ros- 
celin  of  Compiegne  (d.  1119)  who,  as  founder  of  Nom- 
inalism, denied  real  existence  to  all  concepts  that  were 
not  individual  things;   this  position  caused  him  to 


THE  CLUNIAC  REFORM  101 


attack  the  realistic  principle  involved  in  the  doctrine 
of  the  Trinity,  and  his  criticism  brought  him  under 
the  animadversion  of  Anselm,  who  spoke  of  him  as  the 
heretic  of  dialectic  and  procured  his  formal  condem- 
nation by  a  church  synod  (Soissons  1096). 

Realism,  because  of  the  venerable  names  associated 
with  it    in    Christian   antiquity,   reigned  practically 
supreme  until  the  time  of  Peter  Abelard,  who  by  his 
talents    as  a   teacher   and   by   his   vigor  of  thought 
clarified    many  ethical   and   religious    problems  con 
tained  in  the  traditional  teaching  of  the  Church.     As 
a  critic,  he  pointed  out  that  the  Bible  and  the  conciliar 
decrees  were  the  sole  valid  sources  for  discovering  the 
mind  of  the  Church.     In  all  spheres,  scientific  princi- 
ples, he  argued,  should  be  employed,  because  of  the 
unique  supremacy  of  man's  reason.     But  he  did  not 
solely   concern   himself    with   the   reconstruction   of 
dogma.      Realism   itself  he  opposed   on  the  ground 
that  it  coincided  with  Pantheism.     His  speculations 
on  the  theory  of  knowledge  led  him  to  adopt  a  po- 
sition which  is  technically  known  as  Conceptualism. 
According  to  this  doctrine,  universal  or  general  terms 
have  no  reality,  but  they  do   indicate  the  common 
properties  that  are  in  the  particular  members  of   a 
class.      By    his    epistemological    doctrine,    Abelard 
sought  to  protect  the  transcendence  and  the  person- 
ality of  God,  the  moral  purposefulness  of  His  acts, 
and   also  was  able  to  prevent  that  identification  of 
the  world  with  the  absolute  which  appears  the  neces- 
sary corollary  of  realism. 


102  MEDIAEVAL  CHURCH  HISTORY 

In  Christological  speculation,  the  work  of  Abelard 
and  of  the  other  anti-realists  who  were  his  contempo- 
raries (Gilbert  dela  Porree,  1141,  Ruprecht  von  Deutz 
d.  1 135),  led  to  a  denial  of  the  traditional  explanation 
of  the  incarnation,  accepted  since  the  time  of  St. 
CyriJ,  and  tended  to  the  position  of  Adoptionism  — 
the  view,  that  is,  which  emphasizes  the  human  element 
in  Christ.  It  was  this  tendency  in  Abelard  which, 
added  to  the  weaknesses  of  his  personal  character, 
stirred  up  various  opponents  to  his  teaching  who  found 
a  strong  champion  in  Bernard.  His  trinitarian  po- 
sition was  also  challenged,  yet  despite  these  attacks, 
his  influence  on  the  development  of  theological 
thought  survived  them.  His  enemies  were  not 
strong  enough  to  keep  the  presentation  of  dogmatic 
study  within  the  accepted  traditional  lines.  His 
method  continued  to  be  a  model,  especially  as  shown 
in  his  famous  work  Sic  et  Non.  The  arrangement 
here  used  of  giving  authorities  for  and  against  certain 
formulated  statements  became  the  norm  for  the  treat- 
ment of  theological  discussions.  There  was  due  to 
him,  too,  the  systematic  handling  of  church  dogma  as  a 
whole,  seen  in  his  attempt  to  harmonize  all  separate 
questions  as  the  necessary  parts  of  a  complete  whole. 
There  is  a  close  connection  between  his  work  and  that 
of  Peter  Lombard,  with  whom  begins  the  succession 
of  regular  scholastic  teachers.  With  less  appeal  to 
formal  reasoning  the  writings  of  Bernard  and  the 
school  of  St.  Victor  were  a  product  of  the  pure  mo- 
nastic temper,  that   aimed   at   individual  perfection 


THE  CLUNIAC  REFORM  103 

through  ascetic  training  or  mystical  contemplation. 
In  both  these  developments,  emphasis  was  laid  upon 
the  personal  relation  of  the  soul  to  Christ,  presented 
either  as  the  object  of  pure  adoration  or  as  the  em- 
bodiment in  a  transcendent  form  of  the  redeeming  love 
called  forth  and  appropriated  by  the  conviction  of 
human  sinfulness. 

The  Cluniac  Reform  and  Popular  Religion 

Popularly,  the  vigor  of  the  religious  reawakening 
showed  itself  in  the  treatment  of  those  who  had  vio- 
lated the  moral  precepts  of  the  Church.  There  still 
prevailed  the  distinction  between  public  and  private 
penance ;  those  who  were  guilty  of  grave  offences  had 
to  make  public  confession  at  the  beginning  of  Lent 
and  receive  in  the  cathedral  church  of  the  diocese 
certain  penitential  obligations  (alms,  fasting,  pilgrim- 
ages, shaving  the  hair,  walking  barefoot  and  the  like). 
Private  penance  was  a  matter  which  concerned  alone 
the  individual  penitent  and  the  parish  priest.  The 
only  changes  made  were  in  the  regularizing  of  the 
compensatory  acts  in  such  a  way  that  the  penalties 
should  not  be  subject  to  the  caprice  of  the  priest  who 
heard  the  confession.  In  the  eleventh  and  twelfth 
centuries,  there  is  a  noticeable  tendency  to  diminish 
the  severity  of  the  penitential  system.  Those  who 
observed  the  ''peace  of  God"  or  who  took  part  in  the 
crusades  were  given  the  privilege  of  receiving  formal 
absolution  without  waiting  for  the  ordinary  interval 
to  pass  between  the  confession  of  their  faults  and  their 


104  MEDIEVAL  CHURCH  HISTORY 

restoration  to  full  communion.  So  arose  the  custom 
of  indulgences,  which  signified  in  reality  that  those  in 
authority  could  impose  on  the  penitent  shorter  and 
more  merciful  forms  of  satisfaction  than  those  pre- 
scribed in  the  customary  penitential  manuals. 

Another  evidence  of  popular  sympathy  with  the 
religious  revival  was  the  extension  of  preaching,  a 
practice  which  seems  to  have  been  the  product  of  the 
reform  monastic  movement  mentioned  in  connection 
with  the  name  of  St.  Norbert  of  Xanten.  Preaching 
was  not  confined  to  church  buildings;  in  streets  and  in 
public  places,  crowds  were  brought  together  to  listen 
to  the  impassioned  words  of  the  preacher  whose  theme 
was  an  exhortation  to  repentance  and  emphasized  the 
obligation  of  keeping  the  peace  and  according  forgive- 
ness to  enemies.  No  restrictions  were  at  first  placed 
on  the  preaching  of  laymen ;  but  apparently  the  op- 
portunity offered  for  irresponsible  persons  to  acquire 
dangerous  influence  over  their  hearers,  or  even  to 
enrich  themselves,  led  to  the  introduction  of  the  rule 
that  no  one  could  preach  without  securing  first  the 
permission  of  the  bishop. 

How  strongly  the  cooperation  of  the  laity  was 
sought  for  and  secured  can  be  seen  in  the  number  of 
confraternities  of  a  philanthropic  or  doctrinal  char- 
acter founded  for  mutual  aid.  These  organizations 
appear  to  have  originated  in  England  and  to  have 
been  first  introduced  on  the  continent  by  St.  Boni- 
face. The  members  were  the  clergy  of  a  particular 
locality,  or  province,  then  laymen  who  had  by  bene- 


THE  CLUNIAC  REFORM  105 

factions  contributed  to  their  success  were  admitted  to 
their  ranks.  The  religious  revival  stimulated  these 
confraternities  into  renewed  life  and  they  became  a 
characteristic  feature  of  mediaeval  society.  Some- 
time in  the  twelfth  century  independent  lay  organi- 
zations originated,  their  appearance  coinciding  with 
the  industrial  advance  of  northern  Italy  and  France, 
which  tended  generally  to  the  development  of  corpo- 
rate ties  between  those  who  came  to  feel  the  social 
influence  of  identical  interests.  These  groups,  often- 
time  closely  related  to  the  local  government  of  their 
community  or  to  the  industrial  guilds,  shared  in 
common  worship  in  a  common  building  before  a 
common  altar.  They  took  upon  themselves  certain 
religious  exercises  or  united  to  perform  philanthropic 
acts,  such  as  care  of  the  sick  and  poor,  the  breaking 
up  of  bands  of  criminals,  the  building  and  upkeep 
of  bridges.  In  all  such  cases  the  religious  sanction 
contributed  powerfully  to  create  spheres  of  social 
energy  which  could  not  be  directly  influenced  by 
monasticism. 

Heretical  Sects 

Despite  all  this  complexity  of  administration,  the 
changing  conditions  of  western  Europe  could  not  be 
entirely  guided  by  the  Church.  The  spread  of  city 
life,  the  rise  of  an  artisan  class,  put  a  severe  strain 
upon  the  methods  of  religious  propaganda  used  by 
the  Church  with  its  graded  hierarchical  divisions, 
admirably  fitted  to  handle  the  problems  of  an  agri- 


106  MEDIEVAL  CHURCH  HISTORY 

cultural  community.  The  aspirations  of  the  middle 
class  seemed  less  well  understood,  for  they  turned  in 
considerable  numbers  for  guidance  to  a  strange  re- 
ligious sect,  the  Kathari,  who  were  strong  in  North 
Italy  and  France.  Taking  their  origin  from  the  rem- 
nants of  Marcionites  and  Priscillianists  found  on 
the  eastern  frontier  of  the  Byzantine  Empire,  and  also 
from  the  Euchites,  a  community  based  on  emotional 
asceticism  that  existed  in  Syria  and  eastern  Asia 
Minor,  the  Kathari  first  appear  as  an  independent 
religious  organization  among  the  Bulgarians  under 
the  name  of  Bogomils,  i.e.  friends  of  God.  Their 
teaching  penetrated  westward  along  the  ordinary 
trade  routes  through  the  Slavic  dealers  in  eastern 
wares.  Their  success  in  making  converts  may  be 
ascribed  to  their  appearance  at  a  time  when  the 
efficiency  of  the  Church  was  at  a  low  ebb,  i.e.  prior  to 
the  period  of  the  Cluniac  reform,  at  the  end  of  the  tenth 
and  beginning  of  the  eleventh  century.  They  won 
their  way  among  all  clases  of  society  but  especially 
among  the  artisans  and  laborers.  Some  of  their  suc- 
cess must  be  ascribed  to  the  ability  of  their  leaders  as 
popular  preachers. 

In  organization,  the  Kathari,  like  the  old  Mani- 
chaeans,  had  a  hierarchical  class  of  'perfecti',  who 
received  the  special  sacrament  of  the  laying  on  of 
hands,  practised  an  ascetic  life,  and  could  forgive 
sins'and  secure  for  the  initiated  future  bliss.  Both 
women  and  men  belonged  to  this  class  and  were  the 
leaders     in     active    propaganda.       Doctrinally,    the 


THE  CL  UN  I  A  C  REFORM  1 07 

teaching  was  dualistic  —  the  kingdom  of  light  and 
darkness  —  the  realm  of  matter  and  spirit;  only  by 
practices  of  strict  asceticism  could  the  ties  of  the  ma- 
terial world  be  broken.  Those  who  were  "perfected" 
had  the  obligation  of  winning  converts,  were  expected 
to  guide  them  spiritually  and  prepare  them  for  "a  good 
death."  But  reception  into  this  exclusive  circle  was 
alone  regarded  as  a  guaranty  of  entrance  into  heaven. 
The  antagonism  of  the  Kathari  to  the  Church  was 
carried  to  a  radical  extreme;  church  sacraments  were 
held  invalid,  the  Old  Testament  was  rejected,  and  all 
the  forms  of  religious  w^orship  held  in  abhorrence.  It 
must  be  remembered,  however,  that  since  many  of  the 
adherents  of  Katharism  were  not  complete  initiates, 
this  radical  position  was  not  often  held.  What  at- 
tracted converts  was  probably  the  appeal  to  a  simple 
life  and  the  contrast  offered  by  the  Kathari  mission- 
aries to  the  worldliness,  ostentation,  crudeness,  and 
brutality  of  the  official  clergy. 

The  attention  of  the  ecclesiastical  authorities  was 
first  called  to  the  propaganda  of  the  Kathari  in  Spain 
and  in  Sardinia,  and  later  in  France  and  Italy,  where 
strong  measures  were  used  against  them  early  in  the 
eleventh  century.  But  the  attitude  of  the  Church 
was  by  no  means  uniform,  because  among  the  Ger- 
manic people  the  ancient  laws  of  the  Christian  Roman 
Empire  against  heretics  had  never  been  applied. 
There  had  been  no  heretical  movements  en  masse  \ 
individuals  alone  had  departed  from  the  orthodox 
doctrine;  excommunication,  deposition,  enclosure  in 


108  MEDIAEVAL  CHURCH  HISTORY 

a  monastery,  had  been  the  extreme  penalties,  for  the 
heterodox  had  usually  been  members  of  the  clerical 
order.  The  spread  of  Katharist  doctrine  created, 
therefore,  a  considerable  problem,  and  in  northern 
and  southern  Europe  we  find  different  methods  of 
meeting  it. 

Among  the  Teutonic  peoples  heresy  was  placed  in 
the  same  category  as  the  practice  of  magic  and  the 
preparation  of  poisonous  drugs.  Such  were  adjudged 
heinous  crimes  and  under  the  old  tribal  law  had  been 
punished  by  burning.  This  was  the  popular  point  of 
view,  but  its  drastic  precepts  were  opposed  by  pre- 
lates like  Bishop  Wazo  of  Luettich  and  also  by  Greg- 
ory VII.  It  was  only  by  degrees  that  the  Church  be- 
came the  advocate  of  extreme  measures.  At  the 
Synod  of  Rheims  in  1157,  a  proposal  was  made  that 
the  secular  power  should  use  the  death  penalty  against 
heretics.  In  the  southern  zone,  a  milder  atmosphere 
prevailed ;  it  is  true  a  few  leaders  perished,  but  general 
toleration  lasted  from  1034  for  a  period  of  a  century 
and  a  half.  In  southern  France  there  first  appeared  a 
desire  for  strenuous  measures  on  the  ground  that 
heresy,  as  a  crime,  should  be  punishable  by  imprison- 
ment, alienation  of  property  and  expatriation. 

Canon  Law  and  Curial  Administration 

With  the  close  of  the  struggle  over  investiture,  the 
golden  age  of  the  papacy  begins,  a  period  comparable 
to  those  years  of  peace  in  the  history  of  Rome  inaugu- 
rated by  the  recognition  of  the  principate,  after  the 


THE  CLUNIAC  REFORM  109 

Stormy  epoch  of  dictatorship  and  civil  war.  The 
full  headship  of  the  pope  was  accepted  and  in  his 
hands  lay  the  direction  of  the  whole  and  all  its  parts. 
The  episcopate  counted  for  little.  Synods,  it  is  true, 
met  and  were  largely  attended,  but  to  the  episco- 
pate were  now  assigned  the  functions  given  the 
people  in  the  Homeric  assembly.  The  bishops  were 
decorative  but  not  necessary  factors  in  these  im- 
posing gatherings.  The  full  codification  of  church 
law  presented  a  far  stronger  basis  for  papal  autocracy 
than  synodical  action,  and  so  we  find  Gratian  in  his 
collection  called  the  Deci^etum  or  the  Concordance  of 
Discordant  Canons  (about  1124),  giving  papal  de- 
cretals the  same  validity  as  the  decisions  of  the 
general  councils.  The  only  limitation  placed  by 
Gratian's  code  on  papal  authority  was  the  law  of 
nature  and  God,  a  most  elastic  principle,  for  the 
arbiter  of  this  transcendental  law  was  the  pope  him- 
self. At  first  Gratian's  work  had  only  the  authority 
of  his  name  as  an  individual  teacher;  later,  when  it 
was  used  as  a  textbook  in  schools  of  canonical  and 
theological  learning,  it  replaced  all  other  collections. 
His  sources  are  brought  together  with  no  critical 
ability  whatever,  documents  true  and  false  standing 
side  by  side.  Even  more  serious  are  the  mistakes  due 
to  the  glosses  and  deductions  made  by  Gratian  in 
commenting  on  his  texts;  yet  they  came  also  to  be  re- 
garded as  authoritative,  and  many  of  the  features 
peculiar  to  papal  absolutism  were  due  to  arguments 
elaborated  by  Gratian  himself. 


no  MEDIJEVAL  CHURCH  HISTORY 

As  important  in  the  life  of  the  Western  Church  as 
papal  canon  law  was  the  evolution  of  papal  adminis- 
tration. Local  influences  no  longer  had  weight;  the 
nobility  of  Rome  had  finally  lost  all  power  and  in  their 
place  now  stood  the  papal  Curia  or  Court  with  mem- 
bers drawn  from  all  nationalities.  In  their  hands  was 
concentrated  the  direction  of  a  most  complicated 
system  of  government  —  executive,  legislative,  and 
judicial.  Appeals  covering  cases  of  discipline  were 
carried  to  Rome  from  all  portions  of  the  Church. 
Since  the  ninth  century  grave  offences  had  in  an  un- 
systematic way  been  left  to  be  dealt  with  by  the 
pope,  and  frequently  the  offenders  themselves  had 
been  sent  to  Rome  in  order  to  have  the  limit  of  their 
period  of  excommunication  there  decided  by  the 
highest  authority.  Under  the  Cluniac  reform  this 
custom  was  more  frequently  put  into  practice,  as  the 
power  of  the  diocesan  bishop  became  gradually 
weaker.  In  course  of  time  questions  regarding 
certain  sins  were  specifically  reserved  for  papal  de- 
cision. Closely  connected  with  this  practice  was  the 
exercise  of  the  right  of  dispensation  under  which  the 
pope  in  special  instances  suspended  the  operation 
of  a  definite  church  law  in  the  case  of  a  particular 
individual.  Further  restrictions  on  local  diocesan 
authority  are  seen  in  the  extension  of  "reservations", 
i.e.  the  appointment  by  papal  authority  alone  of  the 
incumbents  to  positions  which  had  previously  been 
in  the  gift  of  the  bishop  of  the  diocese. 

This  course  of  development  was  found  to  be  an  ef- 


THE  CL  UN  I  A  C  REFORM  1 1 1 

fective  way  of  supplying  the  growing  financial  needs 
of  papal  administration.  It  was  probably  due  to  the 
financial  experience  of  Hildebrand  that  the  traditional 
plan  of  supporting  the  Roman  See  by  patrimonial 
possessions  in  landed  estates,  directly  worked  by 
hired  agents,  was  replaced  by  a  system  of  money  pay- 
ments, taxes  and  fees.  In  this  respect  the  papal 
government  was  far  in  advance  of  most  secular  king- 
doms. Monasteries  under  special  papal  protection, 
as  well  as  countries  and  individuals  bound  to  the  pap- 
acy by  feudal  ties,  paid  for  the  privileges  in  money 
contributions,  and  one  of  the  most  unique  resources 
of  the  papal  treasury  was  the  Peter's  Pence,  a  custom 
that  had  originated  in  England  in  the  eighth  century 
as  an  obligatory  contribution,  collected  to  support  a 
hospice  in  Rome  to  house  the  Saxon  pilgrims;  this 
sum,  after  being  regulated  at  a  fixed  amount  annually, 
was  finally  diverted  into  the  papal  exchequer. 

The  financial  and  legal  duties  of  the  papal  govern- 
ment of  the  Church  required  a  definite  training; 
something,  therefore,  resembling  the  civil  service  of 
the  modern  state  came  into  existence.  The  officials 
employed  in  it  were  not  only  given  positions  in  Rome 
itself,  but  were  also,  under  the  system  of  *' reser- 
vations" mentioned  above,  provided  with  lucrative 
posts  in  other  countries.  The  natural  result  of  growth 
in  the  business  and  administrative  sphere  of  papal  rule 
led  to  the  production  of  the  curial  official,  who  was 
more  distinguished  for  shrewdness  and  diplomacy 
than  for  his  devotion  to  Christian  standards  of  con- 


1 1 2  MEDI^  VA  L  CHURCH  HISTOR  Y 

duct.  It  was  this  deterioration  in  the  official  class 
around  the  pope  which  called  from  St.  Bernard,  a  de- 
voted adherent  of  the  papal  system,  strong  words  of 
reproof  in  his  tract  "On  Consideration"  —  a  personal 
appeal  to  Pope  Eugenius  to  set  his  household  in 
order. 

Aided  by  a  trained  bureaucracy  which  gave  to  the 
papal  system  continuity  of  policy,  the  curial  cause 
was  substantially  helped  also  by  groups  of  papal  par- 
tisans who  were  particularly  active  when  organized 
as  new  monastic  orders.  The  Cistercians  especially 
were  singled  out  for  valuable  privileges.  Citeaux,  like 
Cluny,  had  originally  been  under  diocesan  supervision, 
but  later  on  it  became  entirely  exempted,  when  it 
began  to  be  seen  what  use  might  be  made  of  an  inter- 
national monastic  party  pledged  to  act  everywhere  as 
partisans  of  the  Roman  See. 


CHAPTER  IV. 
THE  HILDEBRANDINE  PAPACY  AT  WORK 

NOW  that  the  machinery  of  the  Hildebrandine 
papacy  has  been  traced  in  outline,  it  is  inter- 
esting to  see  this  remarkable  creation  at  work  in  the 
period  of  its  greatest  success,  i.e.  from  the  middle  of 
the  twelfth  to  the  third  quarter  of  the  following 
century,  by  which  time  the  traditional  antagonist  of 
the  papal  regime,  the  imperial  power  of  the  Germans, 
had  been  overcome  in  a  mighty  contest,  which  showed 
the  efficiency  of  Hildebrand's  programme.  The 
issue  of  this  long  struggle  was  not  always  clearly 
foreshadowed  and  the  end  was  not  reached  until  after  a 
closely  connected  series  of  events,  all  of  which  pointed 
to  papal  supremacy.  There  were  decided  ebbs  of  the 
tide,  periods,  that  is,  in  which  old  questions  ap- 
parently long  since  settled  were  again  burning  points 
in  the  relations  between  State  and  Church. 

Arnold  of  Brescia 

Cases  of  local  unrest  in  Rome  itself  frequently 
brought  the  papacy  into  danger,  and  more  than  once 
there  were  two  claimants  to  the  papal  dignity.  On 
one  occasion  the  pope  himself  had  to  take  refuge  in 
France  when  the  commonalty  of  Rome  asserted  for 
itself  the  same  rights  as  those  which  were  so  ef- 
fectively being  used  in  other  Italian  cities. 
9 


1 14  MEDI^  VAL  CHURCH  HISTOR  Y 

This  picturesque  movement  was  championed  by 
Arnold  of  Brescia,  a  pupil  of  Abelard,  and  a  monk 
who  held  that  the  sole  cure  for  the  progressive  deterio- 
ration of  the  Church,  due  to  world  politics  and  to 
world  business,  was  abstention  from  ownership  of 
property.  The  clergy  were  to  live  by  the  free-will 
offerings  of  the  faithful.  On  these  grounds  he  at- 
tacked the  exercise  of  episcopal  jurisdiction  in  his 
own  city.  Priests  who  refused  to  accept  these  austere 
standards  were  to  be  rejected  as  unworthy,  and  the 
sacraments  administered  by  them  held  invalid.  Ar- 
nold's teaching  may  be  regarded  as  an  instance  of  the 
influence  of  the  Kathari,  but  after  all  they  are  but  easy 
deduction  from  the  principles  of  the  Cluniac  move- 
ments. By  a  decree  of  the  Lateran  Council  of  1139, 
Arnold  was  banished  from  Italy,  and  then  by  St.  Ber- 
nard's influence,  who  dreaded  his  attacks  on  the  papal 
system,  driven  from  city  to  city  until  he  found  a  refuge 
in  Rome,  where  he  placed  himself  at  the  head  of  the 
local  democratic  movement  which  had  gained  new 
strength  on  account  of  the  disputed  election  to  the 
papal  chair.  Pope  Eugenius'  desire  to  make  use  of 
the  actual  political  situation  in  Germany  and  in 
southern  Italy  to  advance  his  cause,  enabled  Arnold 
to  point  to  him  as  an  example  of  the  degradation 
caused  by  the  cultivation  of  secular  ambitions  on  the 
part  of  the  head  of  the  Church.  Arnold  failed  be- 
cause the  Emperor  Frederick  I  had  no  interest 
in  sustaining  a  champion  of  local  liberties  in 
Rome. 


THE  HILDEBRANDINE  PAPA CY AT  WORK   1 15 

The  Papacy  and  Nationalism 

Such  criticism  as  that  of  Arnold  was  not  without 
justification,  because  the  whole  attention  of  the  Curia 
was  concentrated  on  making  the  best  use  of  political 
conditions  in  western  Europe.  It  tried  to  gain  definite 
advantages  wherever  the  arrangement  made  by  the 
Concordat  of  Worms  could  be  claimed  to  be  violated. 
The  wide  play  of  clerical  influence  may  be  seen  in  the 
history  of  England  during  this  period.  In  the  matter 
of  the  disputed  succession  between  Matilda  and  Ste- 
phen, the  episcopate  claimed  to  act  as  arbiters.  The 
jurisdiction  of  the  Roman  See  was  extended  so  broadly 
that  almost  any  case  might  be  appealed  from  the 
King's  courts.  It  was  due  also  to  clerical  influ- 
ence that  Stephen's  son  was  not  appointed  as  his 
successor  to  the  throne. 

On  the  larger  continental  scale  the  contest  be- 
tween Church  and  State  was  waged  between  the 
Hohenstaufen  emperor,  Frederick  I,  and  the  papa- 
cy; the  point  at  issue  was  the  right  of  interven- 
tion exerted  by  the  emperor  in  elections  to  the 
German  episcopate.  Frederick  was  insistent  that 
church  property  was  bound  to  the  sovereign  by 
exactly  the  same  obligations  that  were  attached  to 
the  tenure  of  other  property;  in  so  doing  he  consist- 
ently advocated  the  type  of  church  organization 
which  existed  under  Charles  the  Great  and  Otto  I, 
especially  in  regard  to  the  landed  possessions  of  the 
clergy.     In  reply  Pope  Hadrian  (1157)  asserted  that 


116  MEDIEVAL  CHURCH  HISTORY 

the  right  to  the  imperial  crown  depended  on  papal 
good  will. 

The  final  stage  of  the  dispute  took  place  between 
the  emperor  and  Alexander  III  who,  though  he  was 
opposed  by  an  imperial  anti-pope,  managed  by  his 
alliance  with  the  powerful  free  communes  of  north- 
ern Italy  to  inflict  a  distinct  check  upon  the  emperor. 
Frederick  had  secured  the  adhesion  of  his  own  clergy 
and  the  bishops  to  his  national  ideas  of  church 
government,  and  for  this  reason  Alexander  never 
dared  to  adopt  such  a  drastic  policy  in  dealing  with 
this  German  monarch  as  Hildebrand  had  successfully 
applied  to  Henry  IV  in  the  previous  century.  Excom- 
munication and  dispensation  from  the  oath  of  loyalty 
were  the  measures  used  to  bring  the  emperor  to 
reason.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  they  proved  of  small 
avail;  the  German  episcopate  disregarded  the  papal 
mandate;  there  was  no  civil  war,  nothing  to  break 
the  solid  front  presented  by  the  German  nation  to 
the  theocratic  system.  Where  Frederick  failed  was  in 
the  attitude  he  took  towards  the  Italian  communes; 
they  saw  that  their  interest  was  on  the  side  of  the 
pope  and  it  was  their  armies  that  gave  the  papal  side 
the  victory  (Legnano,  1177).  The  obstinacy  with 
which  the  emperor  defended  the  rights  of  the  State 
was  in  no  small  degree  due  to  the  revived  study  of 
the  Roman  civil  law  at  Bologna,  and  to  the  influence 
upon  his  political  ideals  of  his  acquaintance  with  the 
despotic  forms  of  the  Byzantine  Empire. 

Without  any  spectacular  display  and  only  aided  by 


THE  HILDEBRANDINE  PAPACY  A  T  WORK    117 

shrewd,  persistent  calculation,  the  French  monarchy 
during  the  twelfth  century  was  undermining  the 
Hildebrandine  constitution  in  France.  The  clergy 
made  themselves  the  chief  agents  in  the  extension  of 
the  royal  power,  since  in  it  they  saw  a  secure  pro- 
tection from  the  lawless  acts  of  the  great  feudal  lords. 
High  ecclesiastics,  both  bishops  and  abbots,  were  the 
representatives  of  the  monarchy ;  in  return  they  fully 
accepted  the  relationship  of  the  ordinary  vassal. 
The  result  of  this  alliance  was  the  acquisition  by  the 
king  of  the  Regalian  rights  in  their  fullest  extent. 
This  implied  not  only  that  the  king  received  the  in- 
come arising  from  church  privileges,  property,  and 
from  its  feudal  dues  particularly,  but  that  he  also  con- 
trolled the  official  acts  of  the  episcopate  and  could 
appoint  to  benefices  under  episcopal  jurisdiction. 
This  last  concession  enabled  the  king  to  place  in 
cathedral  chapters  enough  of  his  nominees  to  direct 
the  choice  of  the  diocesan  bishop. 

The  Church  in  England 

These  indirect  methods  of  strengthening  the 
monarchy  in  France  were  not  imitated  in  England 
where  there  was  a  replica  of  the  continental  struggle 
between  the  emperor  and  the  pope.  The  question 
in  which  Henry  H  and  Thomas  a  Becket  were  the 
respective  champions  of  Church  and  State  concerned 
the  jurisdiction  of  the  royal  courts.  Under  the  settle- 
ment affected  by  William  I  the  bishops  were  given 
the  power  of  dealing  with  all  crimes  and  torts  in- 


118  MEDIAEVAL  CHURCH  HISTORY 

volving  the  clergy.  In  course  of  time  this  privilege, 
by  an  easy  extension,  was  made  to  cover  numbers  of 
cases  that  might  be  claimed  by  the  secular  courts. 
The  conflict  of  jurisdiction  was  as  much  a  financial 
question  as  a  matter  of  legal  procedure,  because  for 
a  mediaeval  monarch  court  fees  were  no  inconsiderable 
factor  in  a  primitive  system  of  finance.  The  royal 
standpoint  was  aggressively  stated  in  the  Consti- 
tutions of  Clarendon  in  1164  which,  besides  reaffirm- 
ing the  old  Norman  principles  of  royal  supremacy 
over  the  Church,  limited  the  sphere  of  the  clerial 
courts,  bound  the  clergy  in  criminal  matters  to  have 
recourse  to  the  king's  courts,  forbade  appeals  from 
these  to  Rome  and  constituted  them  the  final  au- 
thority in  all  legal  cases. 

In  preparing  this  anti-clerical  policy  the  king's 
chancellor,  Thomas  a  Becket,  had  a  large  share.  It 
seemed  the  natural  thing  to  promote  him  to  the  See 
of  Caterbury  to  put  it  into  effect.  Becket  was  soon 
transformed  from  a  loyal  admirer  of  his  king  to  a 
fervid  champion  of  Hildebrandine  church  polity. 
He  refused  to  accept  the  Clarendon  decrees,  though 
the  majority  of  the  English  episcopate  had  done  so. 
Becket  was  backed  by  the  peasantry  and  townspeople, 
who  saw  in  him,  as  champion  of  the  clergy,  the  man 
who  represented  an  order  which  stood  between  them 
and  the  exactions  of  an  ascendent  aristocracy  which 
was  itself  largely  the  creation  of  the  Norman  Con- 
quest. The  long-drawn  stages  of  this  celebrated  strug- 
gle were  due  both  to  the  complexities  of  Henry  II's 


THE  HILDEBRANDINE  PAPA CY AT  WORK    1 19 

policy,  in  which  the  wide  extent  of  his  rule  over 
French  countries  had  to  be  kept  in  view,  and  also  to 
papal  diplomacy  itself.  Alexander  III  was  troubled 
at  this  time  by  the  creation  of  an  anti-pope  at  the 
hands  of  Frederick  I  and  he  hesitated  in  his  support 
of  the  archbishop  to  push  Henry  II  so  far  that  he 
might  join  the  party  of  the  emperor,  and  so  accept 
the  jurisdiction  of  the  anti-pope.  For  six  years  the 
archbishop  lived  as  an  exile,  and  when  he  returned 
to  his  see  in  1170  no  permanent  basis  for  peace 
had  yet  been  found.  On  the  29th  of  December  of 
the  same  year  occurred  the  famous  martyrdom  in 
Canterbury  cathedral  when  Becket  lost  his  life  be- 
cause of  his  fidelity  to  Hildebrandine  churchman- 
ship.  The  assassination  stirred  not  only  England 
but  the  Continent,  for  everywhere  the  murdered 
archbishop  was  hailed  as  a  saint  and  reverenced  as  a 
worker  of  miracles.  Henry,  who  had  difficulty  in 
clearing  himself  of  complicity  in  the  crime  by  the 
most  abject  penitential  penalties,  found  he  could  only 
make  peace  with  the  Church  by  withdrawing  those 
features  from  the  decrees  of  Clarendon  which  had  been 
superadded  to  the  traditions  and  practices  of  Norman 
kingship.  He  was  obliged  to  sacrifice  his  opposition 
to  appeals  to  Rome.  In  other  respects  the  exercise 
of  his  sovereign  rights  over  the  English  Church  con- 
tinued as  before,  according  to  the  model  introduced 
by  the  Conqueror.  The  civil  wars  later  on  in  which 
he  became  involved  with  his  sons  had  nothing  to  do 
with  his  ecclesiastical  policy,  and  his  defeat  did  not 


i 

i 

120  MEDIEVAL  CHURCH  HISTORY 

weaken  his  control  over  the  Church  in  his  domin- 
ions. 

Henry's  reign  is  remarkable  also  ecclesiastically, 
because,  owing  to  the  extension  of  the  English  sover- 
eignty over  Ireland,  the  Irish  Church  emerged  from 
its  position  of  isolation.  The  Danish  invasions  in 
reducing  the  country  to  a  chaotic  condition  had  par- 
alized  Irish  Christianity.  When  the  invaders  were 
Christianized  some  attempt  was  made  to  bring  the 
bishopric  of  Dublin  situated  within  the  Danish  Pale 
in  relation  with  Archbishop  Lanfranc  and  Gregory 
VII.  In  the  interior  things  remained  as  they  had 
been.  The  work  of  organization  was  taken  up  after- 
wards systematically  by  Malachi  (1095-1148),  who, 
first  as  coadjutor  of  Armagh  and  afterwards  as 
tenant  of  the  see,  worked  with  success  to  model  the 
Church  in  Ireland  after  the  standards  of  England 
and  the  Continent.  Through  his  close  friendship 
with  St.  Bernard,  both  the  Cistercian  monks  and  the 
Augustinian  orders  were  introduced.  Not  long  after 
Malachi's  death,  the  Irish  Church  was  visited  by  a 
Roman  legate  and  organized  into  four  provinces  and 
twenty-eight  bishoprics  under  immediate  papal  su- 
pervision. This  proved  to  be  a  mere  paper  constitu- 
tion, because  there  was  no  power  to  put  it  into  effect. 
For  this  reason  Henry's  plans  to  conquer  the  island 
were  fully  approved  by  Rome,  which  authorized  him  on 
the  ground  of  the  Constantinian  Donation  to  invade  the 
country,  take  possession  of  it,  reform  its  morals  and 
religion,  only  asking  him  in  return  to  acknowledge  the 


THE  HILDEBRANDINE  PAPACY  AT  WORK    121 

pope  as  overlord  in  his  tenure  of  the  island,  and  to  un- 
dertake to  transmit  Peter's  pence  to  Rome.  Henry, 
who  fully  understood  monarchical  church  control  at 
home  found  no  difficulty  in  transplanting  to  Ireland 
the  system  he  was  familiar  with  in  England.  Bish- 
oprics, priories,  and  monasteries  were  put  under  the 
immediate  jurisdiction  of  the  crown.  All  appoint- 
ments were  in  the  king's  hands;  Englishmen  were 
given  the  important  positions,  and  to  the  king's  in- 
ventive mind  was  due  the  extension  of  the  ''spolia- 
tion" privileges  from  large  foundations  to  the  livings 
of  petty  incumbents.  The  Synod  of  Cashel,  which 
took  place  not  long  after  the  murder  of  Archbishop 
Becket  in  1171,  registered  these  various  changes,  and 
the  new  arrangement  was  so  much  appreciated  by  the 
pope  that  he  was  willing  to  give  Henry  practically 
carte  blanche  in  his  management  of  Irish  church 
organization  in  return  for  his  recognition  of  papal 
supremacy. 

Church  Expansion  / 

In  Scandinavian  lands  the  Hildebrandine  organi- 
zation of  their  churches  advanced  very  slowly;  there 
was  a  steady  if  rather  inert  opposition  among  all  the 
Scandinavian  nations  against  the  systematic  manipu- 
lations and  the  perfected  machinery  so  dear  to  the 
Latin  mind.  Much  more  successful  was  the  ex- 
pansion, towards  the  northeastern  Slavic  lands,  of 
German-speaking  Christianity,  as  carried  out  under 
the   guidance   of    the   Cistercian    and    Praemonstra- 


122  medijEval  church  history 

tensian  orders.  New  sees  and  monasteries  were 
founded  in  large  numbers.  The  spread  of  Christi- 
anity was  accompanied  by  a  distinct  economic  ad- 
vance; wherever  the  Cistercians  settled  they  cleared 
away  forest  lands  and  drained  marshes.  Peasants 
were  transferred  from  other  monastic  estates  and  in- 
duced to  settle  in  lands  where  they  acted  as  colon- 
izing centres  for  the  German  Church.  Church  ex- 
pansion here  was  equivalent  to  a  permanent  process 
of  social  change  by  which  the  whole  character  of 
Slavonic  districts  was  altered. 

The  Later  Crusades 

The  Asiatic  extension  of  Latin  Christianity  went 
through  many  vicissitudes  in  the  twelfth  century. 
The  states  established  by  the  crusaders  lacked  unity 
just  when  it  was  wanted ;  the  Latin  lords  were  jealous 
of  one  another  and  did  all  they  could  to  sap  the  re- 
maining strength  of  the  Byzantine  Empire.  The 
occidental  ecclesiastics  only  added  a  further  trouble- 
some factor  to  those  who  had  to  govern  an  alien  popu- 
lation. By  the  help  of  a  constant  stream  of  pilgrims 
from  the  West  and  with  the  support  of  the  sea-power 
of  Venice,  Pisa,  and  Genoa,  the  Christians  secured 
and  maintained  their  hold  on  the  coast  cities  of  Syria. 
In  the  interior,  away  from  the  fleets,  practically  no 
impression  was  made  on  the  power  of  the  Seljukian 
Turks.  The  most  effective  instruments  for  the  occu- 
pation of  the  country  were  the  two  orders,  the  Tem- 
plars and  the  Knights  of  St.  John  or  the  Hospitalers. 


THE  HILDEBRANDINE  PAPACY  A  T  WORK    123 

Both  were  great  military  organizations  and  so  consti- 
tuted what  might  be  called  the  standing  army  of  cru- 
sading lands.  The  Templars,  founded  in  1123  as  an 
armed  escort  for  groups  of  pilgrims,  soon  became 
engaged  in  independent  military  adventures.  The 
Hospitalers  kept  closer  to  their  original  purpose  of 
attending  the  sick,  but  both  orders  acquired  wealth 
and  large  landed  possessions,  sometimes  controlling 
whole  towns.  The  crusading  population,  properly 
speaking,  was  chiefly  French,  while  in  the  coast  cities 
there  were  large  colonies  of  Italians  who  had  come 
there  for  the  purpose  of  trade.  To  the  Eastern 
Church  the  attitude  of  the  Western  Christians  was 
most  unfriendly  and  contemptuous ;  the  only  body  of 
Eastern  Christians  to  whom  advances  were  made  was 
the  Armenian  Church  whose  members,  as  a  result  of 
the  Turkish  conquests  were  scattered  abroad  through- 
out Asia  Minor. 

It  was  the  aggressive  attitude  of  the  Seljuks,  who 
finally  took  Edessa  in  1144,  that  caused  a  fresh  appeal 
to  go  forth  in  western  Europe  for  help.  St.  Bernard 
added  his  powerful  patronage  and  prophesied  brilliant 
success  for  Christian  arms.  But  failure  followed; 
not  only  was  Edessa  not  retaken,  but  even  Antioch 
was  threatened.  The  western  princes  in  the  crusade 
had  their  own  special  interests;  King  Roger  of  Sicily 
was  diverted  from  an  expedition  in  north  Africa  by 
his  desire  to  revenge  himself  on  the  Byzantine  em- 
peror who  was  the  ally  of  Conrad  the  German  king. 
Louis  of  France  saw  no  advantage  in  the  crusade, 


124  MEDIEVAL  CHURCH  HISTORY 

because  there  were  no  territorial  acquisitions  for  hira 
to  secure.  Matters  in  the  crusading  states  went  from 
bad  to  worse  after  the  failure  of  this  second  expo- 
sition (1148).  The  Seljuks  under  Saladdin  extended 
their  conquests  over  the  whole  of  Egypt  and  nearly 
the  whole  of  Syria.  Even  Jerusalem  fell  into  his 
hands  in  1187.  Outside  northern  Syria  only  Tyre, 
Tripolis,  and  Antioch  remained  under  Christian 
control. 

This  catastrophe  led  to  a  third  crusade,  which  was 
joined  in  by  all  the  great  monarchs  of  the  West,  in- 
cluding the  emperor,  Frederick  I,  Richard  of  England, 
and  Philip  Augustus  of  France  (1188).  Regular 
organized  armies  accompanied  the  western  princes, 
but  the  expedition  was  ruined  by  the  introduction 
also  of  western  national  politics.  When  Frederick 
met  his  death  in  Asia  Minor  (1190),  his  son  Henry 
inherited  not  only  his  German  possessions  but  also  by 
marriage  with  the  Norman  heiress,  Constance,  be- 
came lord  of  Sicily  as  well.  Such  preponderance  was 
regarded  as  dangerous  by  Richard  I,  who  was  sover- 
eign over  most  of  France  as  well  as  England.  The 
actual  achievements,  therefore,  of  the  crusade  were 
inconspicuous;  a  three-years'  armistice  was  granted 
with  free  entrance  of  pilgrims  into  Jerusalem  (1192), 
and  some  small  territorial  concessions.  Certainly 
not  to  be  accounted  in  crusading  victories  was  the 
conquest  of  Cyprus,  an  integral  part  of  the  Byzantine 
Empire,  by  Richard  I  of  England  and  its  subsequent 
transfer  to  a  French  noble  house. 


THE  HILDEBRANDINE  PAPACY  A  T  WORK    125 

Innocent  III 

The  conclusion  of  the  crusade  with  the  inter- 
national rancors  that  developed  from  it  brought 
about  an  anti-imperial  alliance  against  Henry  VI, 
whose  well-planned  schemes  for  supremacy  seemed  on 
the  point  of  succeeding  when  he  died  in  Sicily  at  the 
early  age  of  thirty-two  (1198),  leaving  as  his  heir  a 
son  who  had  not  yet  attained  his  majority.  Henry's 
plans  had  involved  the  carrying  out  of  his  father  Fred- 
erick's anti-papal  policy,  which  had  three  aims:  the 
acquisition  of  Sicily,  by  which  the  temporal  power  of 
the  pope  would  become  gradually  squeezed  out  of  ex- 
istence; the  acquisition  of  the  dominions  of  Matilda 
of  Tuscany,  the  supporter  of  Gregory  VII  who  had 
donated  her  territory  by  will  to  the  Roman  See  —  a 
donation  held  to  be  invalid  because  without  imperial 
consent;  and  lastly,  the  control  over  church  patronage 
in  Germany. 

This  was  the  imperial  programme  which  Innocent 
III,  who  became  pope  in  1198  at  the  age  of  thirty- 
seven,  devoted  himself  to  destroy.  Both  a  statesman 
and  a  well-trained  jurist,  the  new  pope,  who  had  in- 
exhaustible energy,  followed  in  his  attitude  towards 
all  other  countries  the  principles  he  adopted  to  break 
down  the  imperial  position.  In  Germany  the  matter 
was  easy,  for  after  Henry's  death  there  was  a  disputed 
succession  between  his  brother  Philip  and  Otto  of 
Brunswick,  a  powerful  feudatory.  Innocent  succes- 
sively  allied  himself   with  both  parties,  taking   ad- 


126  MEDIEVAL  CHURCH  HISTORY 

vantage  in  each  case  of  every  opportunity  to  secure 
recognition  of  his  sovereignty  over  State  as  well  as 
Church.  He  was  the  first  pope  to  appeal  explicitly 
to  the  coronation  of  Charles  the  Great  as  a  fact  which 
established  the  superiority  of  pope  to  emperor.  The 
electoral  rights  of  German  princes  were,  therefore, 
he  explained,  only  a  concession  from  the  papacy.  As 
the  coronation  was  a  church  ceremony,  it  appertained 
to  the  pope,  he  said,  to  decide  as  to  the  qualifications 
of  the  candidates,  and  also,  in  cases  of  disputed 
elections,  to  elect  the  proper  candidate. 

In  Italy  Innocent  initiated  with  a  lawyer's  shrewd- 
ness the  policy  of  ''recoveries",  a  process  analogous 
to  the  well-known  ''reunion"  scheme  of  Louis  XIV, 
by  which  that  monarch  cleverly  annexed  much  dis- 
puted territory  to  France.  Properties  claimed  as 
once  ceded  to  the  Roman  See,  on  any  kind  of  specious 
documentary  evidence,  good  or  bad,  since  they  could 
never  be  alienated,  were  to  be  "recovered",  simply 
by  summary  citation.  It  is  remarkable  how  in  a  few 
months  after  Henry  VI's  death  this  method  was 
successfully  employed  to  eliminate  German  control 
over  numbers  of  communes  and  localities  in  central 
and  eastern-central  Italy.  But  even  this  well-con- 
ceived plan  for  enlarging  papal  authority  failed,  as 
Innocent  complained,  to  produce  the  expected  results; 
for  in  many  cases  territories  and  estates  fell  directly 
into  the  hands  of  the  local  authorities  who  refused  to 
give  them  up.  In  Sicily  the  pope  encouraged  an  anti- 
German  movement,  by  which  the  officials  of  Henry 


THE  HILDEBRANDINE  PAPA CY AT  WORK    127 

VI  were  forced  to  leave  the  island  and  himself  took 
over  the  guardianship  of  the  young  King  Frederick 
II  after  the  death  of  his  mother  Constance  in  1198. 

With  all  these  advantages,  Innocent's  intervention 
in  German  affairs  turned  out  badly ;  because  neither  of 
the  imperial  claimants  were  disposed  to  become  the 
passive  instruments  of  papal  policy.  The  pope  found, 
too,  on  more  than  one  occasion  during  the  civil  war, 
that  he  was  * 'putting  his  money  on  the  wrong  horse". 
Finally  Philip,  the  claimant  whom  he  last  supported, 
was  assassinated.  Otto,  the  pope's  first  favorite,  proved 
recalcitrant  when  he  became  the  sole  champion  of  the 
national  party.  So  Innocent,  in  order  to  keep  up  the 
civil  war  which  gave  him  enviable  opportunities  of 
fishing  in  troubled  waters,  found  himself  obliged  to 
put  forward  his  ward,  Frederick,  Henry  VI's  son  and 
king  of  Sicily,  as  final  claimant.  By  this  act  the  pope 
prepared  the  way  for  the  future  union  of  Germany 
and  Sicily,  the  very  object  he  had  worked  so  long  to 
prevent.  Even  the  period  of  civil  war  was  brought 
to  an  unexpected  close  after  the  battle  of  Bouvines, 
when  Otto,  along  with  his  English  and  French  allies, 
met  a  disastrous  defeat  (1214).  By  1218  Frederick 
II  was  the  sole  ruler  over  German  lands,  a  position 
he  was  soon  to  use  as  the  champion  of  the  mediaeval 
imperial  state  in  its  final  conflict  with  the  papacy. 

In  England  Innocent's  claims  seemed  destined  to 
secure  an'easy  triumph,  because  there  he  had  as  his 
opponent  the  weak  son  of  Henry  II,  John,  who  by 
incapacity  had  lost  all  the  advantage  that  came  to  him 


128  MEDIEVAL  CHURCH  HISTORY 

as  the  heir  of  his  father's  extensive  dominions  on  the 
Continent.  The  desired  opportunity  for  papal  inter- 
vention came  as  the  result  of  a  disputed  election  to 
the  See  of  Canterbury.  Innocent  annulled  the  choice 
of  the  chapter  and,  asserting  the  right  of  the  Roman 
See  in  such  cases,  caused  his  friend  Stephen  Langton 
to  be  chosen  as  Archbishop  (1206).  This  was  the 
first  occasion  that  Rome  had  ventured  to  exercise  the 
right  of  election  in  England,  and  when  the  King  re- 
fused to  accept  the  papal  candidate,  the  country  was 
placed  under  an  interdict.  There  soon  followed  a 
decree  of  excommunication  and  John  was  deposed 
(1212).  Philip  Augustus  of  France  was  then  author- 
ized to  lead  a  crusade  against  the  recalcitrant  country 
and  take  control  of  it.  The  nobles  and  clergy,  in- 
censed at  the  arbitrary  behavior  of  John,  sided  with 
France.  John,  who  soon  realized  his  dangerous  po- 
sition, made  his  submission  to  the  pope,  received 
back  his  crown,  as  the  liegeman  of  the  Roman  See 
(1213),  and  so  secured  the  help  of  Innocent  in  his 
struggle  against  France  and  his  rebellious  subjects. 
But  the  papal  programme  was  frustrated  by  the  issue 
of  the  battle  of  Bouvines  in  which  John  found  himself 
on  the  losing  side.  The  result  of  his  defeat  was  the 
celebrated  Magna  Charta,  by  which  the  clergy,  with 
Stephen  Langton  at  their  head,  and  the  nobility  of 
England,  secured  a  written  acknowledgement  of  all 
their  rights  that  had  been  exercised  since  the  Nor- 
man Conquest  (15th  of  June,  1215).  John  attempted 
to  have  this  constitutional  document  nullified  by  the 


THE  HILDEBRANDINE  PAPACY  A  T  WORK   129 

pope's  help;  and  Innocent  formally  condemned  the 
Charter  and  excommunicated  all  those  who  observed 
its  provisions.  Archbishop  Langton  was  suspended, 
and  drastic  measures  were  issued  against  the  nobles 
and  citizens  of  London.  But  popular  feeling  was  so 
strong  that  after  the  death  of  John  and  Innocent  the 
Magna  Charta  was  set  forth  as  the  valid  law  of  the 
kingdom  by  papal  legates. 

In  France  the  weakness  of  England  had  helped 
Philip  Augustus  to  secure  a  complete  supervision 
over  the  nomination  to  many  ecclesiastical  posts. 
As  the  royal  Authority  was  extended,  the  existing 
rights  of  the  great  feudal  landlords  over  bishoprics 
and  abbeys  fell  into  the  king's  hands.  Wherever 
there  was  a  financial  or  political  advantage,  the  king 
showed  himself  most  actve  in  securing  it.  The 
growth  of  free  communes  was  encouraged,  but  nothing 
was  done  by  the  king  to  prevent  the  carrying  of 
appeals  to  Rome.  In  his  personal  relations,  Philip 
Augustus  felt  the  weight  of  papal  intervention;  he 
was  obliged,  at  Innocent's  bidding  to  take  back  his 
first  wife,  from  whom  he  had  been  separated  shortly 
after  his  marriage. 

In  Spain  the  advance  of  Christian  arms  toward  the 
south  and  the  conquest  of  Portugal  from  the  Moslems 
gave  an  opportunity  to  the  papacy  which  was  not 
neglected.  The  country  was  placed  under  the  special 
protection  of  St.  Peter,  an  action  which  might  have 
had  more  important  results  had  it  not  coincided  with 
the    temporary    recrudescence    of    Moslem    power. 


130  MEDIAEVAL  CHURCH  HISTORY 

Finally  after  crusading  privileges  had  been  accorded 
to  those  fighting  on  behalf  of  the  Christian  arms  in 
Spain,  the  battle  of  Navas  de  Tolosa  (1212)  was  such 
a  blow  to  Moslem  arms  that  by  the  middle  of  the  cen- 
tury the  whole  of  Spain  was  under  Christian  rulers, 
with  the  exception  of  the  small  Moslem  enclave  in 
the  southeast,  known  as  the  Kingdom  of  Grenada. 

The  Eastern  Churches 

To  the  East  Innocent  devoted  great  attention ;  ad- 
vances were  made  to  the  Armenians,  the  Greeks  of 
the  Eastern  Empire  and  to  the  Slavonic  peoples  of  the 
Balkan  peninsula.  Innocent's  plan  was  to  bring  all 
the  Eastern  Churches  under  the  Roman  obedience, 
and  then  advance  unitedly  against  Islam.  The  first 
stage  was  to  be  the  cutting  off  of  all  commercial  re- 
lations with  Moslems;  then  a  crusade  was  to  be 
preached  and  large  financial  support  secured  by  a 
general  tax  imposed  on  the  whole  of  Christendom. 
The  results  were  deplorably  out  of  proportion  to  this 
grandiose  scheme.  Venice  managed  to  divert  the  cru- 
sade to  its  own  ends,  chiefly  the  acquisition  of  com- 
mercial supreumacy  in  the  Orient.  The  objective  of 
the  crusaders  became  Constantinople,  not  Palestine. 
In  the  spring  of  1204  the  capital  of  the  Eastern  Em- 
pire was  taken  by  assault,  and  many  of  the  most 
precious  treasures  of  antiquity  fell  into  the  hands  of 
the  conquerors  or  perished  by  fire.  No  more  consider- 
ation was  shown  to  the  inhabitants  than  if  they  had 
been  Moslems ;  the  land  was  under  a  western  prince  as 


THE  HILDEBRANDINE  PAPA CY AT  WORK    131 

emperor,  the  provinces  handed  over  to  great  western 
feudal  families,  chiefly  French,  and  the  Church  re- 
ceived as  its  patriarch  a  Venetian  ecclesiastic  who 
was  directed  to  introduce  Roman  customs  of  worship 
and  organization.  The  experiences  undergone  by  the 
Greek  Christians  at  this  time,  in  which  they  were 
treated  as  heretics  and  subjected  to  a  genuine  reign 
of  terror,  implanted  in  them  that  hatred  and  suspicion 
of  Latin  Christianity  which  still  to-day  impresses  the 
visitor  to  the  East. 

In  actual  accomplishment  this  abortive  cruasde 
prepared  the  way  for  further  victories  on  the  part  of 
Islam  because,  by  destroying  the  Byzantine  Empire, 
it  eliminated  one  of  the  chief  Christian  bulwarks  in 
the  East.  Innocent,  though  himself  an  unsparing 
critic  of  the  excesses  of  the  crusaders,  was  willing  to 
benefit  by  their  actions;  he  was  also  not  to  be  deterred 
by  his  previous  experience  from  encouraging  other  at- 
tempts. Among  these,  certainly  the  most  pathetically 
disasterous  were  the  two  Children's  Crusades  of  1212, 
which  can  only  be  explained  on  the  ground  that  the 
pope,  with  all  his  legal  acumen,  was  here  a  true  pro- 
duct of  the  Middle  Ages  in  his  loyalty  to  an  emotional 
and  irrational  idealism.  The  following  year  another 
papal  appeal  was  made  in  which  Innocent  did  not 
hesitate  to  encourage  the  undertaking  by  prophesying 
the  near  downfall  of  Islam.  ^To  prepare  for  the  new 
expedition  to  the  East,  the  great  Lateran  Council  was 
called  in  121 5  as^a  great  Christian  congress  to  discuss 
ways  and  means. 


132  MEDIEVAL  CHURCH  HISTORY 

The  Separatist  Movements 

Among  the  important  questions  with  which  Inno- 
cent had  to  deal  was  that  of  heretical  or  separatist 
movements  within  the  Western  Church  itself.  We 
have  already  spoken  of  the  successful  propaganda  of 
the  Katharists  in  France  and  Italy.  With  the  rapid 
extension  of  town  life  there  came  a  demand  for  a  clergy 
who  knew  how  to  preach  and  who  also  could  follow 
the  evangelical  precepts  as  to  purity  and  simple  living, 
not  alone  in  monastic  retirement,  but  in  the  life  of 
the  ordinary  everyday  world.  Inspired  by  convictions 
which  this  demand  illustrates,  a  Lyonese  merchant, 
Waldes,  gave  up  his  business  (about  1173),  became  a 
wandering  mendicant  and  later  on  undertook  the  work 
of  preaching  repentance  in  the  streets  and  houses 
of  towns.  He  was  soon  joined  by  numbers  of  men 
and  women  who  imitated  his  manner  of  life,  and  were 
inspired  by  the  same  mission.  When  they  were  for- 
bidden to  do  out-of-door  preaching,  Waldes  appealed 
to  Pope  Alexander  III,  who  referred  him  back  to  the 
head  of  his  diocese.  Silenced  for  a  time,  like  the 
followers  of  John  Wesley  centuries  later,  they  dis- 
regarded episcopal  inhibitions,  and  resumed  their 
open-air  preaching. 

As  the  movement  spread,  the  Waldensians  came 
into  contact  with  a  like-minded  group  of  enthusiasts 
who  had  their  centre  in  the  Milanese  brotherhood 
called  *'Humiliati",  who  like  the  Waldensians,  had 
taken  up  the  work  of  public  preaching  and  associated 


THE  HILDEBRANDINE  PAPA  CY A  T  WORK    133 

with  it  popular  devotional  meetings.  They  had  been 
treated  by  the  ecclesiastical  authorities  with  the  same 
rigor  as  the  Waldensians.  The  radical  wing  of  the 
"Humiliati"  joined  the  followers  of  Waldes,  and  the 
group  of  men  and  women  so  constituted,  after  they 
had  been  formally  excluded  from  the  Church,  under- 
took, under  a  privilege  secured  from  Waldes  himself, 
the  regular  administration  of  penitential  discipline. 
About  1200  a  schism  arose  over  the  question  of 
organization  between  the  Lyonese  section,  who  stood 
for  a  regular  graded  system  of  official  control,  and  the 
Lombard  group,  who  held  to  the  principles  of  an  ec- 
clesiastical democracy. 

The  chief  factor  in  the  Waldes  movement  was,  as 
has  been  said,  the  administration  of  Penance.  A 
specially  selected  circle  of  believers  were  appointed 
to  proclaim  God's  forgiveness  and  appoint  specific 
works  of  satisfaction.  Membership  in  this  circle  was 
only  open  to  those  who  lived  a  celibate  life,  were  de- 
voted to  secret  pastoral  care,  and  carried  it  out  under 
conditions  of  strict  poverty.  Special  stress  was  laid 
by  the  Waldensians  on  Bible  reading.  Theologically, 
they  show  no  approximation  to  the  position  taken  up 
later  by  Luther,  although  they  rejected  the  popular 
teaching  of  the  Church  as  to  Purgatory,  Invocation 
of  Saints,  and  Indulgences.  No  attempt  was  made 
by  the  Waldensians  proper  to  organize  separate  com- 
munities ;  for  all  the  sacraments  apart  from  Penance, 
they  were  taught  to  depend  on  the  regularly  consti- 
tuted authorities  of  the  Church. 


134  MEDIAEVAL  CHURCH  HISTORY 

Much  more  antagonistic  were  the  Lombard  group 
of  the  official  hierarchy.  For  a  time  they  had  their 
own  baptisms  and  eucharists,  because  they  held  that 
the  official  clergy  were  living  in  mortal  sin  and 
could  not  validly  administer  these  sacraments. 
When  the  time  of  persecution  began  they  gave  up 
this  practice  and  followed  the  example  of  the  French 
section,  but  soon  they  took  up  an  attitude  of  irrecon- 
cilability to  the  whole  system,  external  and  internal, 
of  the  mediaeval  Church;  then  under  the  stress  of 
circumstances,  reservation  was  used  as  one  finds  so 
frequently  in  the  sects  of  the  time  in  unfolding  the 
full  'credenda'  to  all  of  those  who  were  connected 
with  them.  As  to  how  far  the  influence  of  Katharism 
affected  the  Waldensians,  there  were  just  as  many 
points  of  fundamental  diversion  as  of  contact.  In 
their  propaganda  neither  group  of  the  Poor  Brothers 
can  be  said  to  have  shown  any  such  powers  of  wide 
expansion  as  the  Katharists,  and  where  they  over- 
lapped it  was  always  the  first  organization  which 
predominated. 

The  growth  of  all  of  these  movements  must  be  set 
down  to  the  inability  of  the  Church  to  meet  either 
the  intellectual  or  the  religious  needs  of  town  popu- 
lations, and  especially  to  understand  that  the  artisan 
classes,  who  themselves  lived  under  hard  conditions, 
could  only  be  evangelized  by  those  who  like  them  had 
no  social  influence  and  no  property,  and  were  also 
willing  to  endure  the  circumstances  of  a  precarious 
living.     In  Innocent's   time  no  attempt  to  contend 


THE  HILDEBRANDINE  PAPACY  A  T  WORK    135 

with  heretical  bodies  on  their  own  ground  was  consist- 
ently made,  though  a  few  leaders  recognized  the  op- 
portunity for  something  more  Christian  than  punitive 
methods  of  repression.  Innocent  himself  accepted 
the  plan  of  campaign  against  the  Lyonese  worked 
out  by  his  predecessors,  i.e.  the  combination  of 
church  excommunication  with  civil  outlawry.  The 
pope  too  was  moved  strongly  by  the  great  accessions 
of  strength  to  the  Katharists.  Punishment,  confis- 
cation, expulsion  from  their  homes,  seemed  to  have 
been  applied  effectively  in  Italian  cities.  In  Aragon 
and  Catalonia,  in  1197,  the  death  penalty  was  intro- 
duced. 

In  southern  France,  where  the  Katharists  were 
most  numerous,  the  application  of  vigorous  measures 
was  obstinately  resisted  by  both  the  towns  and  the 
feudal  aristocracy.  The  lead  in  this  struggle  was  taken 
by  Raymond,  Count  of  Toulouse,  the  most  powerful  of 
all  the  nobles.  To  reduce  the  land  to  submission,  a 
crusade  was  organized  which  was  made  up  of  con- 
tingents of  warriors  under  their  local  leaders  from 
northern  France.  This  expedition  made  quick  work 
of  all  heretics  and  their  sympathizers;  the  repression 
was  characterized  by  the  worst  kind  of  atrocities,  and 
Raymond,  who  tried  to  save  himself  by  compromise, 
found  no  place  for  conciliation.  His  lands  were  over- 
run by  bands  of  trained  soldiery  under  the  orders  of 
Count  Simon  of  Montfort,  who  employed  against  his 
fellow  countrymen  the  methods  of  warfare  which 
were  practised  in  the  eastern  crusading  expeditions. 


136  MEDIAEVAL  CHURCH  HISTORY 

The  climax  was  reached  when  the  Lateran  Council 
assigned  to  Simon  all  the  land  conquered  by  the  cru- 
saders, with  Toulouse  and  Albi  over  which  Raymond 
ruled,  banished  the  count  from  his  home  and  prom- 
ised what  was  then  left  to  Raymond's  heir,  subject 
to  his  good  behavior. 

Permanent  machinery  was  now  devised  to  secure 
the  advantages  already  gained  through  the  institu- 
tion of  the  Inquisition.  Previously  the  discovery 
and  punishment  of  heresy  had  been  left  to  the  local 
officials  of  each  diocese.  On  account  of  the  laxity 
of  local  administration,  the  council  of  Verona,  in 
1 184,  had  assigned  the  work  of  visiting  all  sus- 
pected parishes  to  special  episcopal  commissioners. 
Suspects  were  to  appear  before  the  bishop's  court 
and  apathetic  prelates  were  threatened  with  depo- 
sition. To  Innocent  is  due  the  carrying  out  in  a 
drastic  form  of  these  measures.  His  legates  were 
directed  to  remove  careless  bishops  from  their 
sees.  In  121 5  the  Lateran  Councl  imposed  upon 
secular  officials  the  duty  of  driving  out  all  heretical 
leaders  from  their  territories ;  if  they  refused,  repul- 
sion by  a  crusade  was  to  be  applied.  All  ordinary  mem- 
bers of  heretical  sects  were  to  be  excommunicated, 
and  if  they  were  not  reconciled  within  a  year  they 
were  to  lose  their  civil  rights.  In  order  that  each 
parish  priest  might  be  made  responsible  for  the  ortho- 
doxy of  those  within  his  care,  each  parishioner  was 
required  to  confess  once  a  year  to  his  priest,  then 
make  his  Easter  communion,  and  so  prove  his  regular 


THE  HILDEBRANDINE  PAPA  CY A  T  WORK    137 

connection  with  the  Church.  Other  measures  passed 
by  the  Council  provided  for  the  drawing  up  of  a  con- 
fession of  faith,  the  improvement  of  clerical  morals 
and  a  stricter  intellectual  preparation  on  the  part  of 
the  clergy. 

The  Curial  System 

Innocent  became  the  originator  of  a  vast  system  of 
repression  and  discipline  which  maintained  a  remark- 
able degree  of  external  orthodoxy  and  he  so  empha- 
sized this  aspect  of  church  administration  that  even 
those  who  had  no  sympathy  with  the  formal  side  of 
heretical  movements  felt  the  heavy  hand  of  ecclesi- 
astical oppression.  In  this  pontificate  of  mighty 
plans  and  unique  measures,  because  of  the  pope's 
insight  into  the  details  by  which  they  were  to  be 
carried  out,  one  sees  the  mediaeval  papacy  at  its 
highest  point  of  efficiency.  With  all  a  lawyer's 
skill,  the  pope  made  the  Hildebrandine  theory 
workable.  There  was  no  danger  now  of  being  forced 
to  use  insufficient  or  antiquated  legislation  to  deal 
with  new  problems  as  they  arose.  All  decisions  of 
the  Roman  See  had  the  force  of  law.  There  was  no 
necessity  to  wait  for  the  halting  action  of  synodical 
legislation.  Obstacles  in  national  churches  to  papal 
directions  were  carefully  removed,  for  Innocent 
worked  as  determinedly  against  episcopal  liberties  as 
he  did  against  the  claims  of  the  State  to  secure  a 
sphere  for  itself  in  which  the  pope's  word  was  no 
absolute. 


138  MEDIEVAL  CHURCH  HISTORY 

Innocent  took  care  to  see  that  no  one  was  appointed 
to  a  bishopric  who  would  look  to  anyone  else  than 
the  pope  as  his  superior.  Errors  in  procedure  in 
episcopal  elections  were  not  difficult  to  discover,  and 
where  there  was  a  doubt  the  pope  exerted  the  right 
to  name  the  candidate  by  laying  down  the  conditions 
of  a  valid  election,  or  in  certain  cases  the  nominee 
was  bound  to  'postulate'  the  Curia  to  discover 
whether  the  exact  conditions  had  been  fulfiled.  The 
appellate  system  was  largely  used;  and  citations  to 
Rome  employed  with  regularity  to  hide  episcopal 
depositions  and  so  terriorize  those  who  might  show 
independent  leanings  or  tend  to  depend  on  secular  in- 
fluence. The  connection  between  the  national  sover- 
eign and  episcopal  appointments  was  broken,  though 
both  in  England  and  Gemany  Innocent  met  strenuous 
opposition  when  he  insisted  on  the  principle  of  non- 
interference on  the  part  of  the  State  in  elections  to 
bishoprics.  In  both  cases  the  weakness  of  the  royal 
power  due  to  civil  disturbances  often  enabled  the 
pope  to  carry  his  point. 

Papal  control  had  already  been  extended,  as  we  have 
noted,  from  major  to  minor  ecclesiastical  positions. 
Recommendations  to  vacancies  —  the  so-called  "ex- 
pectancies"—  were  made  mandatory  by  Innocent, 
who,  to  justify  this  practice  as  well  as  the  compli- 
mentary custom  of  "provisions" — the  appointment 
by  the  pope  to  places  vacated  by  the  death  of  their  in- 
cumbents in  Rome — declared  both  to  be  based  upon 
the  plenary  power  inherent  in  the  Roman  See.    A  fur- 


THE  HILDEBRANDINE  PAPA CY AT  WORK    139 

ther  aim  of  papal  policy  was  to  secure  the  exemption  of 
the  clergy  and  all  clerical  property  from  the  payment 
of  taxes.  To  attain  this,  a  canon  was  passed  by  which 
no  legislation  imposing  such  taxes  could  be  accepted 
by  the  Church  unless  it  had  secured  previously  the 
consent  of  the  pope.  In  these  various  fields  Innocent 
attained  success,  but  his  whole  programme  of  making 
the  Church  conterminous  with  the  Empire  in  its 
jurisdiction  and  in  its  functions  failed.  It  is  true  the 
Empire  was  destroyed,  but  in  place  of  one  great  po- 
litical power  there  sprang  into  existance  many  sepa- 
rate states  which  were  able,  by  diplomacy  or  by  ob- 
struction, to  wring  concessions  from  Rome.  The 
result  of  the  Pope's  centralizing  policy  on  the  Church 
was  clear  enough.  He  was  the  universal  bishop  and 
all  the  diocesan  bishops  merely  his  representatives 
in  the  dioceses.  All  the  old  orders  were,  the  pope 
planned,  to  be  remodelled  along  centralized  lines, 
copied  from  the  Cistercian  order.  In  every  direction 
Innocent  aimed  at  the  upbuilding  of  a  great  working 
machine  with  all  its  parts  harmoniously  disposed 
under  one  single  control.  The  conscious  realization 
of  the  purpose  embodied  in  these  claims  and  acts  is 
seen  in  his  adoption  of  the  title  "God's  Vicar  upon 
earth";  his  predecessors  had  contented  themselves 
with  the  designation  ''Vicar  of  Peter"  or  "Christ". 

The  Franciscans  and  Dominicans 

It  is  refreshing  to  turn  from  the  political-legal  en- 
vironment of   the  papacy,  even  when  directed  by  a 


140  MEDIEVAL  CHURCH  HISTORY 

Statesman  such  as  Innocent,  to  the  field  where  spon- 
taneous religious  life  springs,  freed  from  the  pressure 
of  system  and  the  influence  of  shrewdly  calculated 
aims.  It  is  one  of  those  contrasts  characteristic  of 
mediaeval  life  that  a  contemporary  of  Innocent  should 
have  been  St.  Francis  of  Assissi.  Under  influences 
resembling  those  which  produced  the  Waldensian 
movement,  Francis,  giving  up  the  life  of  a  young  man 
of  affluence,  devoted  himself  to  a  personal  realiza- 
tion of  the  gospel  precepts  of  absolute  self-denial. 
He  and  his  disciples  took  up  the  work  of  wandering 
preachers,  assuming  as  well  all  kinds  of  menial  service 
in  behalf  of  their  fellowmen.  They  worked  not  for 
gold  but  for  self-subsistence,  and  so  instilled  respect 
for  the  Christian  life  in  its  highest  potency.  The 
name  taken  by  Francis  for  his  followers,  the  "Brothers 
Minor",  was  sanctioned  and  there  was  no  danger  of 
official  opposition,  because  one  of  the  first  principles 
adopted  by  Francis  was  obedience  to  the  authority  of 
the  Church.  Innocent  was  wise  enough  to  accept 
their  rule,  and  also  to  allow  their  preaching.  So 
popular  did  the  Franciscan  movement  become  that 
even  before  the  Saint's  death  the  extension  of  the 
work  was  planned  for  all  the  lands  of  western  Europe, 
to  which  was  soon  added  missionary  propaganda  in 
Syria  and  Tunis. 

As  the  sphere  of  work  grew  larger  more  attention 
was  paid  to  organization.  Instead  of  a  wandering 
life  the  members  of  the  new  order  formed  permanent 
settlements  in  cities.     The  original  principles  of  the 


THE  HILDEBRANDINE  PAPA  CY A  T  WORK    141 


order  suffered  by  this   transformation  tc  regularity 
and  mechanism ;  what  was  left  of  the  original  inspi- 
ration of  a  unique  personality  was  the  denial  of  prop- 
erty, either  personal  or  corporate,  the  abstention  from 
all  hoarding  of  money  and  the  practice  of  begging  as 
the  sole  source  of  income  of  the  order.     This  last, 
the  mendicant  feature,  was  made  predominant  in  the 
papal  bull  of  1223,  by  which  also  the  connection  of 
the  order  with  the  Roman  See  was  emphasized.    After 
all  this  newly  provided  machinery,  which  reflects  the 
official  spirit  of  the  Curia,   Francis  appears  as   the 
general  of  the  order  with  a  regularly  graduated  hier- 
archy of  subordinates  beneath  him,  so  constituting  an 
organization  which  could  be  readily  used  to  carry  out 
any  directions  from  the  supreme  head  of  the  Church. 
With  Francis  of  Assissi  there  is  always   closely 
associated  the  other  characteristic  personality  of  the 
same  period,  St.  Dominic  (d.  1221),  who  also  devoted 
himself  to  a  life  of  apostolic  poverty  with  the  direct 
purpose   of   overcoming   the   attraction   of   heretical 
movements.     Preaching  in  churches  and  the  hearing 
of  confessions  were  the  chief  obligations  of  the  Do- 
minicans; and  with  these  duties   was  combined  de- 
votion to  theological  studies  as  a  valuable  weapon  of 
overcoming     in    debate    heretical    opponents.      No 
manual  labor  was  to  be  done,  no  property  held,  and 
no  regular  income  permitted.     In  their  organization 
these  new  orders  offered  a  striking  contrast  to  the  old. 
There  was  no  local  autonomy  such  as  was  found  in 
the  abbeys  of  the  monastic  communities.     In  their 


142  MEDIEVAL  CHURCH  HISTORY 

centralization  the  Franciscans  and  Dominicans  fol- 
lowed the  model  of  the  great  military  orders.  At  the 
head  was  a  general  directly  responsible  to  the  pope. 
All  the  other  officials  were  nothing  more  than  adminis- 
trators who  carried  out  directions  received  from 
above.  The  individual  member  of  the  community 
felt  that  his  only  real  superior  was  the  general.  The 
special  contribution  of  both  orders  is  seen  in  the  ac- 
ceptance of  an  ideal  of  monastic  perfection,  not  to  be 
realized  in  isolation,  but  in  association  with  lay 
society  as  a  whole.  While  the  Dominicans  devoted 
themselves  to  preaching,  the  Franciscans  found  their 
chief  sphere  in  works  of  philanthropy  among  the 
lower  classes.  As  time  passed,  the  line  of  demarca- 
tion between  the  two  orders  became  obliterated. 
Even  Francis  himself  lived  long  enough  to  deplore 
the  changes  that  took  place  contrary  to  the  spirit 
of   his  rule. 

The  popularity  of  these  new  creations  of  monastic 
rule  called  forth  many  imitations;  the  only  organi- 
zations, however,  which  secured  papal  approval  were 
the  Augustinian  Hermits  and  the  Carmelites  (1243 
and  1247).  All  of  these  orders  of  friars,  as  they  were 
called,  were  endowed  with  peculiar  privileges  by  the 
pope.  They  were  exempted  from  diocesan  jurisdic- 
tion, and  so  came  into  active  rivalry  with  the  parochial 
clergy  in  the  cure  of  souls.  Their  success  in  winning 
converts,  and  the  influence  they  attained,  made  them 
the  most  valuable  allies  in  securing  for  the  papacy  the 
support  of  the  lay  element  in  every  community  when 


THE  HILDEBRANDINE  PAPA  CY A  T  WORK   143 


the  conflict  between  State  and  Church  became  acute. 
The  career  of  Francis  gave  a  permanent  direction  also 
to  mediaeval  piety;  the  spontaneous  character  of  his 
religion,  with  its  union  of  emotional  freedom  and 
ascetic  rigidity,  brought  him  close  to  popular  feeling. 
Questions  of  church  policy  were  outside  his  ken;  he 
was  willing  to  follow  his  superior's  bidding;  within  a 
system  he  did  not  pretend  to  understand,  he  found 
room  for  noble  aspirations,  a  simple  life  and  self- 
sacrificing  acts.  Interesting  in  this  connection  is 
the  dictum  of  Innocent  IV,  a  pope  of  this  age:  **It 
is  enough  for  a  layman",  he  said,  *'to  believe  in  a  God 
who  exacts  retribution;  in  all  other  things  to  believe 
implicitly  the  teaching  as  to  dogma  and  morals" ;  i.e. 
to  think  and  to  say,  **I  believe  what  the  Church 
believes." 

Indulgencies  and  Confession 

Illustrative  of  the  popular  religious  psychology  of 
this  period  was  the  interest  in  miraculous  happenings, 
and  for  this  reason  emotional  and  mystical  preaching 
appealing  to  the  desire  for  the  miraculous  continued 
to  be  characteristic  of  the  mendicant  orders.  They 
produced  some  splendid  types  of  religious  oratory, 
but,  as  might  be  expected,  the  insistence  on  fixed 
standards  of  popular  piety  led  to  crudities  and  vul- 
garities of  diction  and  thought.  In  order  to  hold  the 
attention  of  the  masses,  and  also  to  secure  a  perma- 
nent source  of  income  for  expensive  foundations, 
which  according  to  their  rules  had  no  landed  estates 


144  MEDIAEVAL  CHURCH  HISTORY 

to  depend  upon,  the  friars  made  extensive  use  of 
systematic  collection  of  alms.  A  lucrative  source  of 
income  came  from  their  special  privileges  in  con- 
nection with  the  distribution  of  indulgences,  which 
during  the  crusading  period  were  found  capable  of 
wide  extension  as  a  means  of  attracting  recruits  for 
the  armies  that  were  constantly  being  sent  to  the 
East.  Not  only  those  who  joined  but  those  who  sent 
substitutes  had  this  privilege.  Finally,  under  Inno- 
cent IV,  an  indulgence  might  be  given  to  one  who 
was  willing  to  settle  in  cash  for  a  vow  made  in  a  cru- 
sade. Indulgences  could  be  had  for  the  performances 
of  certain  specified  good  works,  such  as  hearing  a 
crusade  sermon,  and  the  right  to  distribute  them  was 
conceded  to  churches  and  monasteries  as  sources  of 
income. 

With  the  spread  of  this  custom,  the  old  disciplinary 
usages  of  the  Church  were  completely  transformed. 
Absolution  was  given  immediately  after  confession, 
and  not  deferred  until  the  due  performance  of  peni- 
tential acts  of  retribution  and  satisfaction.  No  such 
indication  of  penitence  was  asked  for  now.  Forgive- 
ness and  restoration  to  grace  was  made  dependent  on 
the  sacramental  act  of  the  priest  alone,  while  the  ele- 
ment of  satisfaction  took  a  secondary  position.  The 
inquiry  in  the  confessionnal  centred  about  secret 
faults,  sins  of  omission  or  commission  not  openly 
known.  Contraventions  of  the  moral  law  could  be 
thus  atoned  for  by  public  acts  of  penance  with  an 
emphasizing  of  the  sacramental  factor  in  absolution ; 


THE  HILDEBRANDINE  PAPA  CY A  T  WORK    145 

the  element  of  personal  contribution,  grew  to  have 
less  importance.  By  the  thirteenth  century  the  the- 
ory was  accepted  that  the  penitent,  in  order  to  be  the 
subject  of  the  priest's  absolving  power,  need  only 
feel  attrition,  i.e.  the  fear  of  the  extreme  penalties 
of  his  sin,  and  not  be  moved  either  by  love  of  God  or 
by  abhorrence  of  the  sin  itself.  So  far  as  is  known 
the  mass  of  lay  people  were  not  expected  to  show 
more  devotion  than  that  warranted  by  the  decree  of 
the  Lateran  Council,  which  appointed,  as  we  have 
said,  a  yearly  confession  previous  to  the  Easter  com- 
munion. 

To  the  immediate  influence  of  St.  Francis  is  to  be 
ascribed  the  systematic  extension  of  the  lay  brother- 
hood movement.  What  had  been  local  organizations, 
now  became  a  part  of  a  world-wide  order.  Those  who 
wished  to  follow  the  Franciscan  ideal  of  life  and  yet 
were  hindered  by  home  ties  might  join  the  so-called 
*third'  order,  which  held  to  simplicity  of  life,  strict- 
ness of  conduct  and  the  performance  of  good  works. 
Apart  from  the  Franciscan  and  Dominican  'third' 
order,  there  were  popular  movements  elsewhere  of 
an  organized  type,  and  most  interesting  among  these 
being  the  Beghines  of  the  Low  Countries,  bands  of 
women  mostly,  who  might  live  as  hermits  in  the 
country  districts,  dwell  in  communities  where  they 
undertook  philanthropic  work,  or  even  in  their  own 
homes  might  practise  a  life  of  devotion  and  restraint. 
Sometimes  under  the  elasticity  of  this  rule  they  were 
altogether  free  from  any  sort  of  superior  direction; 


146  MEDIEVAL  CHURCH  HISTORY 

at  other  times,  they  were  connected  more  or  less 
closely  with  the  official  mendicant  orders  with  whose 
general  ideals  they  closely  sympathized.  The  curious 
name  by  which  they  were  designated  comes  from  the 
soubriquet  of  their  founder,  Lambert,  a  priest  of  the 
Lower  Rhine  district,  called  the  Stammerer  (li  Beges), 
who  had  great  success  as  a  mission  preacher  at  the 
close  of  the  twelfth  century.  This  order  continued  to 
present  the  general  Franciscan  ideal  of  a  wandering 
life  devoted  to  mendicancy  without  productive  labor, 
but  controlled  by  none  of  the  restrictions  which  were 
imposed  upon  the  regular  friars. 

The  Universities 

While  these  popular  religious  forces  grew  up  in  the 
south  of  France  and  in  Italy,  the  home  of  intellectual 
life  continued  to  centre  in  Paris,  where  Abelard's  in- 
fluence was  still  potent.  Two  special  groups  of  in- 
dependent teachers  are  to  be  distinguished.  One 
which  gathered  about  the  abbey  of  St.  Genevieve,  the 
other  on  the  Isle  de  Paris  round  the  cathedral  church 
of  Notre  Dame.  Jurisdiction  over  these  last  was  by 
royal  licence  intrusted  to  the  episcopal  chancellor. 
In  or  about  the  year  1200  the  teachers  organized 
themselves  into  a  corporation  "universitas",  which 
papal  favor  was  able  to  resist  the  chancellor's  claim  of 
control.  In  course  of  time  the  chancellor  became  an 
official  whose  authorized  privileges  of  teaching  were 
given  no  longer  in  the  name  of  the  diocesan,  but  with 
papal  recognition  were  valid  for  the  whole  Church. 


THE  HILDEBRANDINE  PAPA  CY A  T  WORK   147 

About  the  same  time  the  teachers  of  Oxford  became 
formally  organized;  somewhat  later,  1230,  the  Univer- 
sity of  Cambridge  came  into  existence. 

Paris  continued,  however,  to  hold  the  primary  place ; 
the  others  followed  its  methods  and  introduced  by  its 
example  the  dialectical  scheme  of  philosophical  and 
theological  study  founded  by  Abelard.  Fresh  impetus 
was  give  by  the  use  of  new  sources  in  the  wider  range 
of  Aristotelian  writings  now  accessible  and  in  the 
commentaries  on  his  works  by  Arab  and  Jewish 
authors.  The  patheistic  tendencies  of  much  of  this 
material  and  the  influence  it  exerted  over  contempo- 
rary writers  caused  the  Paris  Council  of  12 10  to  con- 
demn both  this  school  of  philosophy  and  also  the  use 
of  books  by  Aristotle  and  his  Oriental  and  Spanish 
interpreters.  In  121 5  the  papal  legates  at  the  Uni- 
versity of  Paris  condemned  Aristotle's  metaphysical 
writings.  But  the  direction  taken  by  popular  thought 
was  too  strong  to  be  overcome;  finally  Gregory  IX 
left  open  all  of  the  works  hitherto  mentioned,  an  ex- 
ception being  made  of  Erigena.  While  this  radical 
change  was  being  recognized  by  the  highest  authority 
in  the  Church,  the  universities  began  to  be  frequented 
by  members  of  the  mendicant  orders. 

In  Paris  their  invasion  was  much  resented  by  the 
corporation  of  resident  teachers.  Papal  privileges, 
however,  soon  made  it  possible  both  for  the  Francis- 
cans and  Dominicans  to  gain  admission  to  the  most 
important  chairs,  and  teachers  of  these  orders  soon 
came  to  have  a  prominent  place  in  Paris,  Oxford  and 


148  MEDIEVAL  CHURCH  HISTORY 

Cambridge.  Unincumbered  by  educational  tradition 
these  progressive  scholars  were  able  to  use  the  newly 
opened  sources  of  philosophic  thought  from  an  inde- 
pendent point  of  view,  to  comment  upon  them  freely 
and  to  combine  them  in  imposing  system  which  drew 
hosts  of  students  to  attend  their  lectures.  Albert 
the  Great  (i  193-1280),  a  Dominican,  was  the  first  to 
work  up  the  whole  of  Aristotle's  writings  into  a 
finished  theological  corpus. 

Even  more  characteristic  of  the  period  was  his  dis- 
ciple Thomas  Aquinas  (1225-1274),  who  by  his  intel- 
lectual acumen,  wide  reading  and  mental  balance, 
appropriated  the  extant  sphere  of  knowledge  and  from 
it  constructed  a  system  of  thought  which  showed  how 
in  an  ordered  and  perspicuous  whole  the  most  varied 
problems  of  philosophy,  cosmology,  ethics  and  soci- 
ology, could  be  handled  with  the  conscious  purpose 
throughout  of  connecting  all  these  spheres  of  interest 
with  the  teaching  and  authority  of  the  Church. 
Another  direction  of  thought  is  seen  in  the  work  of 
the  Franciscan  scholar,  Bonaventura,  who  incorporated 
in  the  regular  dialectical  form  of  the  day  the  mys- 
tical position  found  in  the  writings  of  Dionysius  the 
Areopagite,  to  the  exclusion  of  the  types  of  discussion 
encouraged  by  the  study  of  Aristotle.  Suspicion  of 
dialectic  was  now  overcome  because  of  its  use  by 
scholars  of  the  mendicant  orders,  who  showed  ho  wit 
could  be  employed  in  the  service  of  orthodoxy. 
Church  dogmas,  practices  and  claims  could  either,  it 
appeared,  find  rational  justification,  or  by  careful  dis- 


THE  HILDEBRANDINE  PAPA CY AT  WORK    149 

tinctions  be  placed  in  the  catagory  of  articles  of  faith 
where  the  criticism  of  rationalizing  thought  might 
not  be  applied. 

The  Mystics 

Apart  from,  yet  almost  contemporary  with,  this 
splendidly  developed  systematic  teaching  in  support 
of  the  existent  church  organization,  in  theory  and  in 
practice,  there  was  a  critical  movement,  not  at  all  in- 
tellectual in  its  aims,  which  revived  spontaneously  the 
apocalyptic  traditions  of  the  Early  Church.  De- 
pending upon  a  platonizing  mysticism,  it  rejected  all 
the  externals  and  formalism  of  historical  doctrine 
and  discipline  and  laid  exclusive  stress  on  the  per- 
sonal relation  of  the  soul  with  God,  as  the  sole  factor 
of  religion.  With  this  point  of  departure  it  could 
hardly  fail  to  encourage  a  severe  judgment  of  the  visi- 
ble phenomena  of  ecclesiastical  life,  and  exactly  at  this 
point  appears  a  protest  within  the  frame  of  apoca- 
lyptic speculation  against  the  finality  of  current  theo- 
logical thought.  Joachim  of  Fiore,  first  a  Cistercian 
and  afterwards  a  Benedictine  abbot  (ob.  1212),  divided 
the  religious  history  of  mankind  into  three  periods  — 
the  reign  of  the  Father,  or  the  law;  the  reign  of  the 
Son,  or  the  sacramental  and  hierarchical  dispensation; 
this  was  then  to  be  succeeded  by  the  third  period, 
the  dispensation  of  the  Holy  Spirit,  in  which  all  ex- 
ternal media  of  the  soul's  approach  to  God  would  be 
done  away.  Church,  papacy,  monasticism,  sacra- 
ments the  humanity  of  Christ,  all  would  be  dissolved 


150  MEDIEVAL  CHURCH  HISTORY 

to  give  place  to  the  eternal  substantial  elements  which 
in  a  shadowy,  incomplete  form  they  represented.  The 
Coming  age  was  to  begin  in  1260,  and  would  be  an- 
nounced by  a  period  of  catastrophic  visitations, — 
the  appearance  of  Antichrist,  the  preaching  of  the 
eternal  Gospel,  and  the  gathering  of  the  nations  into 
the  Church.  Much  more  radical  was  the  standpoint 
of  Amalrich  of  Bennes  (ob.  1204),  who  enlarged  with 
much  satisfaction  on  the  details  of  the  era  of  change 
which  was  to  usher  in  the  era  of  the  Spirit.  In  the 
conditions  of  his  own  time  he  saw  the  marks  of  the 
reign  of  Antichrist  and  found  in  a  group  of  faithful 
followers  the  nucleus  from  which  would  develop  the 
kingdom  of  the  Holy  Spirit,  their  origin  being  re- 
vealed by  special  revelations  in  movements  of  rapt 
ecstasy.  In  the  present  institutions  of  the  Church 
might  be  discovered  additional  grounds  for  the  actual 
presence  of  the  time  of  dissolution,  and  Amalrich, 
going  back  to  the  phrasology  of  the  Johannine  Apoca- 
lypse, did  not  hesitate  to  call  the  Church  Babylon, 
the  pope  Antichrist,  and  the  clergy  the  servants  of 
Antichrist.  It  was  the  speculative  basis  of  Amalrich's 
teaching  that  made  the  authorities  of  the  Church  look 
suspiciously  at  the  origins  of  scholastic  philosophy 
with  its  appeal  to  Greek  and  Arab  authors  and  se- 
cured the  permanent  condemnation  of  Erigena,  whom 
Amalrich  was  accustomed  to  regard  as  his  main  au- 
thority. 


THE  HILDEBRANDINE  PAPA  CY A  T  WORK   151 

Frederick  II 

While  in  so  many  directions  the  Church  after  the 
time  of  Innocent  III  was  revealing  unlooked-for  re- 
sources in  great  intellectual  and  devotional  move- 
ments, politically  after  his  period  the  papal  system 
adhered  to  the  constitutional  and  political  standards 
which  characterized  his  pontificate.  The  last  stage 
of  the  conflict  with  the  State  is  noteworthy  because 
of  its  leading  figure,  Frederick  II,  who  in  many  ways 
anticipates  the  representatives  of  enlightened  abso- 
lutism in  the  eighteenth  century.  Frederick  had  to 
plan  his  campaign  against  papal  autocracy  at  consid- 
erable disadvantage.  To  Germany,  worn  out  by  civil 
strife,  he  was  a  foreigner  and  his  ideals  of  govern- 
ment were  also  altogether  alien.  It  was  the  traditions 
of  Norman  Sicily  with  its  trained  beaurocracy  and  its 
mercenary  troops  that  he  tried  to  introduce  as  the 
basis  for  a  centralized  kingdom  on  the  Continent. 
The  Lombard  cities  stoutly  resisted  the  application 
of  a  system  of  government  which  would  have  de- 
stroyed them.  The  complexities  of  Frederick  II's 
policy  are  not  easily  followed  unless  one  appreciates 
that  this  conflict  was  a  combined  move  against  the 
feudalized  state,  communal  independence  and  papal 
theocracy  led  by  a  man  who  had  the  temperament  of 
Lucian  and  Voltaire.  He  was  often  willing  to  sacri- 
fice one  point  of  his  programme  to  gain  a  more  im- 
mediate advantage;  so  we  find  him  at  one  time 
figuring  as  a  crusader,  at  another  gaining  aid  from 


152  MEDIEVAL  CHURCH  HISTORY 

German  feudal  lords  by  extending  the  limits  of  their 
local  jurisdiction. 

The  relentless  animosity  of  the  Curia  was  due  to 
his  advance  in  middle  Italy,  by  which  the  temporal 
dominions  of  the  Roman  See  were  visibly  threatened. 
When  after  the  battle  of  Cortenuova  (1237)  the  Lom- 
bard cities,  because  of  their  defeat,  were  about  to  be 
brought  into  his  centralized  system  of  government — 
which  meant  the  creation  north  as  well  as  south  of 
Rome  of  a  strong  executive  power  established  in  ac- 
cordance with  the  Sicilian  model — Frederick  was  ex- 
communicated (1239).  No  concessions  could  appease 
Innocent  IV,  who  set  himself  everywhere,  not  in  Italy 
alone,  to  destroy  the  imperial  power.  In  1245  a 
council  was  called  at  Lyons  by  which  Frederick  was 
deposed  and  a  new  royal  election  ordered.  In  every 
land  where  Frederick's  authority  was  recognized, 
a  crusade  was  preached.  Sums  collected  for  the  aid 
of  Eastern  Christians  were  devoted  to  this  new  cause. 
Most  powerful  aid  against  the  emperor  was  contrib- 
uted by  the  active  members  of  the  mendicant  orders 
who  could  use  their  hold  over  the  people  to  spread  in 
all  classes  the  invincible  hatred  which  the  acts  of 
Frederick  had  inspired  in  the  Curia.  In  the  civil  war 
which  followed  the  emperor  was  backed  by  the  towns 
in  Germany,  while  in  Italy  he  was  regarded  as  their 
most  formidable  enemy.  The  uprising  against  him 
he  repressed  with  such  ferocity  that  in  Italian  quarters 
it  was  really  believed  that  the  Age  of  Antichrist 
had  come. 


THE  HILDEBRANDINE  PAPA  CY A  T  WORK    153 

The  struggle  left  the  Empire,  at  the  time  of  his 
death  in  1250,  financially  exhausted,  and  there  was  no 
question  of  the  victory  of  the  papacy  when  his  suc- 
cessor, Conrad,  failed  to  retrieve  the  fortunes  of  the 
Hohenstaufens  (ob.  1254).  In  Germany  and  in  Bur- 
gundy the  basis  of  imperial  rule  was  broken ;  but  a 
revival  took  place  in  Italy  under  King  Manfred,  a  son 
of  Frederick,  who,  using  only  his  natural  position  as 
Italian  king,  placed  himself  at  the  head  of  all  the  anti- 
Roman,  i.e.  the  Ghibelline,  parties  throughout  the  pe- 
ninsula. By  offering  the  Sicilian  crown  to  Charles  of 
Anjou,  brother  of  Louis  IX,  king  of  France,  the  popes 
who  supported  their  champion  with  profuse  financial 
liberality  were  able  to  destroy  Manfred  and  his  king- 
dom and  finally  put  to  death  the  last  male  heir  of  Fred- 
erick II.  By  1267  French  rule  was  firmly  established 
over  all  the  Italian  territories  formerly  controlled  by 
the  imperial  German  house.  Charles  of  Anjou,  as 
Protector  of  the  Holy  See,  saw  to  it  that  French  influ- 
ence was  made  predominant  through  the  appointment 
of  French  cardinals.  It  was  soon  a  question  whether 
the  papacy  itself  would  not  become  an  appanage  of 
Charles,  and  also  whether  theocratic  rule  would  con- 
tinue to  be  directed  by  one  man,  or  be  put  in  com- 
mission under  the  direction  of  a  body  of  cardinals 
controlled  by  the   French   champion  of  the  papacy. 

The  Inquisition 

The  age  that  was  marked  by  the  implacable  con- 
test with  Frederick  II  also  witnessed  a  further  ad- 


154  MEDIjEVAL  church  HISTORY 

vance  in  the  perfection  and  extension  of  the  Inqui- 
sition. It  became  so  admirable  an  engine  of  repres- 
sion that  Frederick  himself  used  it  against  his  political 
enemies.  The  officials  of  the  church  system  were, 
apart  from  the  papal  legates,  exclusively  members  of 
the  mendicant  orders  who  were  assigned  independent 
authority  in  the  detection  of  heresy.  Great  attention 
was  given  to  the  development  of  the  procedure  in 
such  cases  and  the  accused  had  small  chance  of 
clearing  himself.  In  manifold  ways  through  the  use 
of  torture  and  denunciation,  coupled  with  the  direct 
and  indirect  extraction  of  implicating  evidence  from 
willing  and  unwilling  witnesses,  a  legal  process  op- 
posed in  all  its  forms  to  the  instincts  of  justice  was 
produced  under  the  seal  of  ecclesiastical  sanction. 
The  penalties  were  made  more  consistently  brutal. 
The  division  already  noticed  between  lands  which 
practised  the  death  penalty  and  those  where  heresy 
was  punished  by  exappropriation  of  property  dis- 
appeared. Both  penalties  were  now  combined;  the 
obstinate  culprit  was  burnt,  all  his  property  con- 
fiscated, and  his  children  had  no  right  of  succession. 
Only  countries  where  heretical  movements  were  un- 
important were  preserved  from  the  iniquities  of  the 
inquisitorial  process.  In  this  happy  catagory  are  to 
be  placed  Castile,  England,  Portugal,  and  the  lands 
lying  east  of  the  German  Empire. 

It  can  hardly  be  denied  that  this  horrible  method 
of  repression,  by  which  the  executioner  became  the 
minister  of  the  historic  orthodox  faith,  achieved  re- 


THE  HILDEBRANDINE  PAPACY  AT  WORK    155 

suits.  Both  the  Katharists  and  the  Waldensians  lost 
ground;  their  adherents  in  order  to  exist  were 
obliged  to  cease  from  propagating  their  doctrines,  or 
to  take  refuge  in  remote  neighborhoods. 

The  Eastern  Question 

While  these  questionable  successes  are  to  be  re- 
corded in  favor  of  the  system  modelled  by  Hildebrand 
and  applied  by  Innocent  III,  the  situation  in  the  East 
was  not  improved.  Probably  inspired  by  trade  inter- 
ests, the  thirteenth  century  crusaders  made  the  chief 
objective  of  their  attacks  the  towns  of  the  Egyptian 
coast.  These  all  failed ;  even  the  valor  and  the  virtues 
of  St.  Louis  could  accomplish  nothing  in  Egypt  (1248- 
1254).  Paradoxically  enough,  it  was  Frederick,  the 
rationalist  and  the  opponent  of  the  papacy,  who  man- 
aged to  arrange  the  best  terms  with  the  Moslem  con- 
querors of  Palestine.  In  1229  he  made  a  treaty  with 
the  Sultan,  Alkamil,  by  which  that  ruler  agreed  to 
hand  over  to  Christian  hands  Jerusalem,  some  other 
places  on  the  main  lines  of  approach  to  the  Holy  City, 
and  preserve  peace  for  a  term  of  ten  and  a  half  years. 
Frederick,  who  had  been  excommunicated,  found  that 
papal  sympathizers  and  papal  troops  in  Syria  were 
able  to  defeat  his  crusade  by  diplomacy.  He  with- 
drew and  all  the  advantages  he  had  secured  were  lost. 
The  Mongol  conquests  in  the  East  proved  dis- 
appointing; though  the  Turkish  Sultanates  were 
overcome  one  by  one,  all  the  coast  towns  in  Christian 
hands  fell  under  the  power  of  the    ''Mameluk"   Sul- 


156  MEDIEVAL  CHURCH  HISTORY 

tans  before  the  end  of  the  century.  The  Latin  king- 
dom of  Constantinople,  a  purely  artificial  creation, 
collapsed  in  1261,  when  the  Greek  emperial  family, 
the  Palaeologi,  took  possession  of  the  capitol.  Latin 
principalities  continued  long  in  existence  further 
south  but  added  no  strength  to  the  Christian  power 
in  the  East,  for  much  of  the  attention  of  the  restored 
Greek  Empire  was  not  directed  to  withstanding  the 
Turk  in  Asia  Minor,  but  in  contending  with  the 
Latins  for  control  of  land  in  the  Balkan  peninsula. 
As  all  attempts  to  bring  the  Greek  or  Russian 
Church  into  subordination  to  the  See  of  Rome  failed, 
the  papacy  began  to  negotiate  with  the  Mongol  mon- 
archs,  who  controlled  vast  Asiatic  possessions,  with  a 
view  to  take  advantage  of  the  principle  of  toleration 
practised  in  their  empire.  Some  Christian  tribes 
remained  unmolested  within  its  borders,  and  it  is 
known  that  physicians  belonging  to  the  Nestorian 
faith  were  in  high  favor  at  the  court  of  the  Mongol 
emperors.  This  was  enough  to  induce  Innocent  IV, 
the  bitter  opponent  of  Frederick  II,  to  send  a  depu- 
tation of  mendicant  friars  to  the  court  of  the  grand 
Khan  south  of  Lake  Baikal.  Nothing  was  accom- 
plished in  the  way  of  the  extension  of  Christianity, 
but  the  friars  opened  up  the  way  to  the  occidental 
trader.  The  Venetian,  Marco  Polo,  a  few  years  later 
penetrated  as  far  east  as  China,  and  by  bringing  back 
with  him  the  knowledge  of  the  wide  extension  of 
Nestorian  Christianity,  encouraged  the  Western 
Church  to  undertake  real  missionary  propaganda  in 


THE  HILDEBRANDINE  PAPA  CY A  T  WORK    157 


distant  lands.  Up  to  this  time  the  movement  of 
Christian  expansion  had  chiefly  followed  the  line  of 
advance  in  the  lands  east  of  the  German  Empire, 
where  the  contest  against  heathen  Slavs  and  Lithu- 
nians  was  conducted  by  a  special  order,  the  Teutonic 
Knights,  who  were  placed  under  the  immediate  head- 
ship of  the  pope  (1230). 

Anti-Papal  Movements 

The  long  struggle  with  Frederick  II  caused  the 
papacy  to  extend  in  every  direction  its  machinery  of 
centralization.  Practically  the  existence  of  autonomy 
of  any  kind  was  guarded  against.  Constitutionally 
this  process  is  seen  in  a  most  significant  form,  when 
Gregory  IX  in  1234  sent  to  all  the  universities  his 
new  collection  of  papal  decretals  with  directions  that 
no  other  source  for  church  law  could  be  used.  These 
decretals  contained  along  with  new  legislation  in- 
stances cited  where  the  ancient  law  of  the  Church 
was  abrogated  at  the  pope's  discretion.  In  Juris- 
prudence the  ecclesiastical  courts  received  a  much 
wider  jurisdiction  than  ever  before.  Matters  of 
church  property,  marriage,  probate  of  wills,  obli- 
gations made  under  oath,  usury,  were  all  included. 
In  addition  questions  concerning  widows,  orphans, 
and  crusaders  might  be  brought  under  their  purview. 
The  use  of  these  courts  was  popular  with  the  laity 
because  they  followed  the  clear  precedents  of  Roman 
civil  procedure  and  were  under  the  direction  of  a  class 
of  trained  oflicials. 


158  MEDIAEVAL  CHURCH  HISTORY 

Financially  the  period  was  marked  by  further 
elaboration  of  papal  taxation.  The  crusades  were 
used  as  a  frequent  excuse  for  imposing  money  con- 
tributions: * 'provisions",  pensions,  fees  from  law 
suits,  all  went  to  support  various  curial  officers  and 
their  dependents,  an  affliction  easily  justified  by  the 
maxim  that  the  property  of  the  Church  was  naturally 
vested  in  its  sole  head  and  governor,  the  pope.  It 
was  the  judicial  and  the  financial  system  of  the  papacy 
that  brought  it  into  antagonism  with  the  states  of 
western  Europe,  France,  and  England,  where  a  mon- 
archial  executive  was  most  completely  established. 
On  several  occasions  the  French  nobles  agreed  to 
ressit  as  a  unit  the  financial  impositions  of  the  Church 
and  the  encroachments  of  the  ecclesiastical  courts. 
But  an  alliance  was  soon  effected  by  which  the 
monarchy  under  Louis  IX  stood  in  close  alliance  with 
the  papacy.  We  have  already  seen  in  the  field  of 
international  politics  the  benefits  derived  from  this 
understanding  by  the  French  king's  brother,  Charles 
of  Anjou.  In  England  under  the  weak  Henry  III, 
papal  finance  and  papal  office-holders  stirred  up  vig- 
orous antagonism  among  both  aristocracy  and  the 
clergy.  Robert  Grosseteste  (1235-1253),  the  Bishop 
of  Lincoln,  has  a  worthy  place  in  the  annals  of  the 
English  Church  as  the  champion  of  its  national  rights 
against  the  papacy,  which  was  more  and  more  com- 
ing to  be  a  great  juristic  and  financial  machine,  threat- 
ening the  foundation  of  national  existence. 

The  result  in  England  was  that  the  extravagant 


THE  HILDEBRANDINE  PAPACY  AT  WORK    159 

demands  of  papal  absolutism  were  checked.  The 
papacy  had  been  foolish  enough  to  ally  itself  with  the 
monarchy;  accordingly  with  the  rise  of  parliamentary 
government  at  the  close  of  the  thirteenth  century,  the 
two  types  of  absolutism, —  papal  and  royal, —  had  to 
bow  to  the  force  of  popular  opinion  legally  expressed 
in  the  nascent  representative  system. 

No  matter  how  regularly  and  how  skilfully  the  ad- 
vance towards  uniformity  was  worked  by  the  curial 
machinery,  absolute  security  could  not  be  reached; 
nor  was  nationalism  the  only  obstructive  element. 
Even  in  the  Franciscan  order,  where  obedience  to  the 
central  organ  of  the  Church  was  an  essential  feature 
of  discipline,  there  were  protests  made  when  the 
directions  of  St.  Francis  himself  were  disregarded, 
after  the  order  undertook  to  make  permanent  es- 
tablishments in  cities  and  when  its  members  aimed 
to  increase  their  influence  by  becoming  teachers  and 
writers;  yet  all  these  changes  were  made  with  Pope 
Gregory  IX's  consent. 

Though  what  might  not  inaptly  be  called  ''mod- 
ernism" prevailed  in  the  order,  some  friars  were 
troubled  by  the  growth  of  worldy  tendencies,  which 
they  interpreted  as  a  result  of  the  general  absorption 
of  the  Church  itself  in  secular  interests.  As  a  ref- 
uge from  temporal  distress  they  adopted  the  apoca- 
lyptic teaching  of  Joachim  di  Fiore.  Official  sanction 
was  given  to  it  by  John  of  Parma,  general  of  the 
order,  who  published  in  1204  Joachim's  writings  as 
the  authoritative  teaching   on  the  third  age  of  the 


160  MEDIAEVAL  CHURCH  HISTORY 

Church.  This  action  was  made  use  of  by  the  Uni- 
versity of  Paris  to  initiate  a  general  attack  on  Fran- 
ciscan teaching.  Within  the  order  itself  the  radical 
doctrines  were  drastically  repressed,  although  Pope 
Alexander  IV  decided  that  the  teaching  of  Joachim 
was  not  heretical. 


CHAPTER  V. 

THE  DECLINE  OF  THE  HILDE- 
BRANDINE  PAPACY 

WITH  the  disappearance  of  Germany  as  an  im- 
perial power  that  had  to  be  reckoned  with,  the 
contest  of  Church  and  State  was  still  far  from  being 
settled.  Only  the  ground  of  contention  was  shifted. 
Taxation,  not  investiture,  was  now  the  burning  ques- 
tion, because  the  financial  side  of  church  administra- 
tion from  Rome  became  even  more  prominent  now  that 
exactions  were  imposed  upon  every  country  to  support 
crusades,  and  to  suppress  heresy.  These  obligations 
were  paid  in  precious  metals  or  negotiable  papers; 
hence  the  papal  financial  system  contributed  largely 
to  spread  in  Europe  a  general  banking  organization, 
and  brought  into  existence  a  host  of  agents  engaged 
in  providing  for  the  collection  and  transportation  of 
money  to  the  papal  treasury.  The  economic  ad- 
vantages of  this  new  kind  of  international  finance 
were  not  lost  on  the  national  kingdoms  who  became 
anxious  to  apply  it  locally  for  their  own  benefit,  or 
were  given  a  share  in  it  by  the  Curia  itself  as  a  return 
for  favors  received.  Causes  of  conflict  also  arose  in 
the  competition  of  the  law  officers  of  the  Church  with 
those  of  the  State,  and  not  infrequently,  too,  as 
happened  in  Languedoc,  a  number  of  artisans  and 
merchants   took   the  tonsure  in  order  to  claim  ex- 


162  MEDIEVAL  CHURCH  HISTORY 

emption  from  the  secular  taxes.  It  will  be  remem- 
bered that  Innocent  III  had  already  decided  that 
members  of  the  clergy  were  free  from  the  financial 
obligations  of  the  ordinary  citizen. 

The  Papacy  and  the  French  Monarchy 

This  issue  came  up  in  an  acute  form  between  Philip 
leBel,  King  of  France,  and  Boniface  VIII  (1294-1303). 
Philip  would  tolerate  no  exemptions  and  proceeded  to 
pass  strict  legislation  against  the  exportation  of  the 
precious  metals.  Boniface  expressed  the  claims  of 
the  clergy  in  the  most  exaggerated  form,  especially 
in  the  famous  bull  Unam  Sanctum  which,  in  pre- 
cise scholastic  language,  formulated  the  full  Hilde- 
brandine  theory  of  the  superiority  of  ecclesiastical 
over  secular  power,  that  involved  the  complete  de- 
pendence of  the  State  on  the  Church.  Philip  was 
excommunicated ;  he  then  not  merely  announced  the 
calling  of  a  council  to  depose  the  pope,  but  sent 
trusted  agents  to  Italy  to  take  him  prisoner.  The 
plan  succeeded  because  Philip  found  ready  allies  in 
some  of  the  nobles  of  the  Campagna,  who  forcibly 
entered  the  palace  at  Anagni  where  Boniface  was 
staying  and  held  him  for  a  time  prisoner.  The  shock 
was  too  much  for  the  aged  pope,  who  died  soon  after 
in  Rome  (October  11,  1303). 

In  England  violent  methods  were  not  followed,  yet 
sure  results  were  reached  which  kept  the  financial 
contributions  of  the  clergy  to  the  support  of  the  State 
from  being   under  papal  supervision.     At  the  very 


DECLINE  OF  THE  HILDEBRANDINE  PAPACY    163 

time  when  the  middle  classes  were  being  organized 
by  their  representatives  in  parliament  in  the  House 
of  Commons  to  deliberate  over  the  questions  of 
supplies,  the  lower  orders  of  the  clergy  were  brought 
together  in  a  convocation,  a  new  type  of  synod,  a 
part  of  whose  duty  was  to  impose  taxes  on  the  clerical 
orders  of  the  realm. 

The  result  of  the  conflict  with  France  was  com- 
pletely disastrous  to  the   papacy  of  the  Hildebran- 
dine   type.     For   some   time   French   influence   had 
been  potent  in  the  College  of  Cardinals  because  of 
the   position  voluntarily  conceded  by   the   Curia   to 
Charles  of  Anjou  and  his  family.     The  experience  of 
lawlessness   at   Anagni  was  soon  used  as  an  excuse 
when  a  Frenchman  was  selected  pope,  as  Clement  V 
was  in  1304,  to  remove  the  papal  government  and  its 
head  to  Avignon  which,  after  several  other  places  in 
France  were  used  as  temporary  shelters,  became  the 
permanent  ecclesiastical  capital  after   1309   and   re- 
tained this  position  for  nearly  seventy  years,  a  period 
which  for  this  reason  is  called  the  Babylonian  Cap- 
tivity.    Avignon  did   not   itself  become  the  actual 
property  of  the  Holy  See  until  1348,  when  it  was 
bought  from  Johanna  of  Naples  for  80,000  gold  florins; 
but  close  to  the  city  was  a  small  territorial  possession 
which  had  been  acquired  by  the  papacy  more  than 
three  generations  before  Clement's  elevation.     Per- 
haps too  much  is  made  of  the  term  * 'captivity",  for 
during  this  period  the  Avignon  popes  did  not  live  on 
territory  under  the  immediate  control  of  the  King  of 


164  MEDIEVAL  CHURCH  HISTORY 

France,  nor,  as  we  have  seen,  does  the  removal  to 
Avignon  mark  the  beginning  of  French  influence  over 
papal  policy.  But  the  immediate  proximity  of  the 
French  royal  house  was  certainly  welcomed  and  de- 
sired, because  in  Italian  politics  the  French  sympa- 
thizers were  always  in  the  anti-Ghibelline  or  pro- 
papal  side,  and  as  time  went  on  the  French  party  in 
the  College  of  Cardinals  so  grew  in  importance  that 
they  became  predominant  as  a  national  force,  and 
could  be  counted  on  to  support  French  policy. 

The  purpose  of  the  Capetian  kings  to  use  the  papacy 
for  their  own  ends  was  seen  at  the  beginning  of 
Clement  V's  pontificate  in  the  supression  of  the  Tem- 
plar order  when  the  pope,  who  feared  that  Philip  would 
carry  out  his  intention  of  having  Boniface  VIII  de- 
clared a  heretic  by  a  General  Council,  acted  as  the 
willing  instrument  of  the  royal  wishes.  The  Tem- 
plars were  singled  out  for  attack  because  they  had  in 
France  enormous  landed  estates  and  did  a  large 
banking  business.  They  were  a  close  corporation, 
enjoying  independent  jurisdiction  and  many  ex- 
emptions: they  were  therefore  the  object  of  popular 
envy  and  also  suspected  because  of  the  mystery 
surrounding  their  rules.  Many  scandalous  stories 
were  told  of  their  depravity;  these  were  fabrications, 
but  the  Templars,  after  the  abandonment  of  the  cru- 
sades, had  outlived  their  usefulness.  It  was  by  no 
means  an  accident,  however,  that  King  Philip  was 
heavily  indebted  to  them,  and  that  he  was  also  on  the 
verge  of  financial  ruin.     High-handed  measures  were 


DECLINE  OF  THE  HILDEBRANDINE  PAPA CY    165 

taken   against   the    order    in   October,    1307,    when 
directions  were  given  for  the  general  seizure  of  their 
property,  and  at  the  same  time  steps  taken  to  bring 
them  before  the  court  of  the  Inquisition  as  suspects 
of  heresy.    The  acts  of  suppression  were  horrible  in  the 
extreme;  where  torture  was  used,  the  victims  were 
willing  to  confess  almost  anything  suggested  to  them. 
In  other  countries  than  France,  where  milder  methods 
were  employed  by  the  Inquisitors,  it  was  plain  that  the 
list  of  offences  were  nothing  more  than  a  fabrication. 
The  pope  played  a  most  pitiable  role  in  this  famous 
process;  for  he  did  everything  to  accentuate  the  cruel 
features  of  the  trial  procedure.     There  were  many 
burnings;   one  important  council,  that  of  Sens,  con- 
demned as  many  as  fifty-four  knights  to  the  flames. 
At  the  Council  of  Vienne,  in  1313,  when  the  members 
refused  to  pass  sentence  of  condemnation  on  the  order, 
the  pope  took  the  matter  out  of  their  hands  and  trans- 
ferred all  their  property  to  the  Knights  Hospitalers, 
and  then  published  his   sentence  of    condemnation. 
King  Philip  was  able  to  have  the  conditions  of  the 
transfer  of  the  Templar's  property  so  arranged  that  he 
paid  off  his  own  debts,  took  posession  of  the  gold  and 
silver    in    their    hoards,    converted    their    financial 
machinery  to  his  own  use,  and  even  went  so  far  as  to 
collect  imaginary  debts  owed  to  the  Temple.     The 
pact  was  then  completed  between  the  papacy  and  the 
French   monarchy;    for   the   case    against    Boniface 
VIII  was  dropped.     It  had  already  been  agreed  that 
the  king  had  acted  in  accordance  with  the  dictates  of 


166  MEDIAEVAL  CHURCH  HISTORY 

his  conscience  and  that  those  who  had  charged  the 
dead  pope  with  every  kind  of  crime  had  only  sinned 
through  excessive  zeal.  All  that  the  Council  did  was 
to  pass  general  resolutions  of  the  same  character  ex- 
culpating both  sides  and  expressly  declaring  that 
Boniface  VIII  had  been  a  legitimate  pope. 

The  Hildebrandine  System  Attacked 

It  can  be  seen  that  the  initial  stage  of  the  papal 
residence  across  the  Alps  was  discreditable,  and  as 
other  popes  succeeded  Clement  V  at  Avignon,  nothing 
was  done  to  make  the  papacy  more  respected.  Such 
rehabilitation  was  necessary  because  one  of  the  new 
features  of  the  struggle  between  the  French  monarchy 
and  the  papacy  was  the  discovery  that  there  was  a 
public  opinion  which  could  be  influenced  and  whose 
influence  counted  for  something.  Among  those  who 
supported  Philip  were  the  writers  who  prepared  the 
arguments  for  his  publicity  bureau,  and  who  in  their 
presentation  of  the  king's  case  exalted  the  national 
rights  of  the  State  over  against  the  Church.  The  two 
spheres  they  contended  were  separate;  the  Church 
should  be  restricted  to  religious  duties  and  the  care 
of  souls,  while  the  State  in  the  field  of  law  and 
government  should  be  supreme.  The  pope,  they 
affirmed,  was  the  Vicar  of  Christ  only  in  relation  to 
the  humiliation  of  the  Son  of  God,  while  the  secular 
power  had  its  own  proper  work  in  the  service  of 
Christian  social  order  and  the  maintenance  of  good 
conduct  and  good  citizenship. 


DECLINE  OF  THE  HILDEBRANDINE  PAPA CY    167 

This  position  was  fully  developed  later  in  the  century 
by  Marsilius  of  Padua  and  Johann  of  Landau  who, 
when  the  imperial  claims  were  revived  in  Germany, 
appeared  as  strong  antagonists  of  theocratic  principles. 
The  heavenly  law  they  contended  was  a  matter  for  the 
future  life,  and  in  this  world  the  hierarchy  of  the 
Church  cannot  properly  wield  the  attributes  of  civil 
power.  Besides  the  Church  itself  must  not  be  iden- 
tified with  the  clerical  order.  The  whole  Christian 
community  with  its  regular  executive  heads  and  its 
councils  were  the  depositories  of  sovereign  power. 
These  councils,  composed  of  both  clergy  and  laity, 
have  the  right  alone  to  interpret  authoritatively  the 
infallible  word  of  God  and  prescribe  general  rules  for 
the  Church.  The  pope  is  not  the  successor  of  St. 
Peter  by  divine  right;  for  historical  causes  have  ele- 
vated the  Bishop  of  Rome  to  his  position.  Strictly, 
the  papacy  depends  on  the  will  of  the  General  Council 
or  the  Christian  community,  and  therefore  the  pope 
can  only  issue  orders  which  concern  ecclesiastical 
life.  His  proper  sphere  is  to  carry  out  the  directions 
of  the  council,  to  act  as  arbitrator  in  controversies; 
but  even  here  his  action  must  be  regulated  in  harmony 
with  the  aims  of  the  secular  power. 

Papal  Finance 

This  atmosphere  of  protest  was  general  and  there 
was  no  moral  nor  material  element  in  the  Avignon 
papacy  to  dissipate  its  force.  In  the  first  place,  the 
financial   position   of    the   Curia   was   anything   but 


168  MEDIEVAL  CHURCH  HISTORY 

satisfactory.  Resources  from  the  lands  under  its 
temporal  sovereignty  were  much  diminished  because 
of  the  troubled  state  of  Italy.  This  financial  strain 
was  accentuated  because  of  the  amounts  diverted  by 
the  popes  themselves  to  the  various  members  of  their 
families.  There  were  the  sums  of  money  spent  in 
building  at  Avignon,  the  expenses  of  warfare  in  Italy 
itself,  with  the  subsidies  paid  to  the  pope's  allies  of 
the  Guelf  party.  These  heavy  drafts  on  the  papal 
treasury  had  to  be  met  by  the  creation  of  new  re- 
sources, chiefly  in  the  way  of  high  fees  on  documents 
that  passed  through  the  Curia  in  its  business  of  con- 
ceding dispensations,  indulgences,  absolutions,  privi- 
leges, graces,  exemptions,  and  grants.  For  the  same 
reasons  the  rights  of  papal  patronage  were  extended 
even  beyond  the  limits  already  noted,  and  most  of  the 
higher  offices  of  the  Church  could  now  only  be  filled 
by  papal  action.  The  general  rule  was  to  exact  a  third 
to  a  half  year's  income  from  any  officer  who  owed  his 
appointment  to  the  pope  —  the  so-called  Annates. 
Ways  were  found,  too,  to  increase  the  voluntary 
offerings  of  diocesan  bishops  and  the  faithful  gener- 
ally. If  the  amounts  were  not  paid  the  delinquents 
were  exposed  to  excommunication  and  their  country 
to  an  interdict.  All  of  such  acts  were  justified  by 
the  maxim,  "Simony  is  not  committed  in  the  Curia." 
The  influence  of  the  system  was  most  deplorable; 
positions  in  the  Church  began  to  be  treated  every- 
where as  sources  of  income.  Its  effect  on  the  pa- 
rochial clergy  was  especially  burdensome ;  foreigners 


DECLINE  OF  THE  HILDEBRA NDINE  PAPACY    169 


were  given  positions  without  any  obligation  to  per- 
form the  duties  attached  to  them.  Benefices  were 
joined  together,  others  were  incorporated  with  rich 
monastic  foundations,  and  secular  clergy  was  then 
employed  at  the  lowest  competitive  labor  rates  to 
undertake  the  official  duties  of  the  parochial  cure. 
The  capitalistic  and  financial  character  of  the  Avignon 
period  was  revealed  unpleasantly  when  John  XXII 
interfered  in  the  internal  dispute  of  the  Franciscan 
order.  Those  who  kept  up  the  agitation  for  a  strict 
observance  of  the  Founder's  rule,  the  so-called 
Spirituals  appealed  to  the  example  of  Christ  and  the 
Apostles,  who,  they  claimed,  had  no  private  property. 
This  statement  was  declared  to  be  heretical  by  a 
Dominican  Inquisitor.  The  order  refused  to  abide 
by  this  decision,  and  the  pope,  in  the  bull  Ad  Condi- 
torem  (1322),  accomplished  a  master  stroke  by  for- 
bidding all  future  gifts  made  to  the  order  to  be  held 
in  trust,  as  it  had  been  done  in  the  past,  by  the 
Roman  Church.  He  followed  up  this  act  by  declaring 
the  proposition  which  affirmed  the  poverty  of  Christ 
to  be  heretical.  The  matter  was  later  on  arranged  by 
allowing  the  property  possessed  and  used  by  the 
order  to  continue  to  be  vested  in  the  donors,  but 
this  result  was  reached  only  after  a  long  and  bitter 
controversy  in  which  many  Franciscan  writers  took  up 
a  decided  anti-papal  position  and  became  supporters 
of  Louis  the  Bavarian  (I3i3-i347),  who  as  holder  of 
the  imperial  title  revived  on  a  small  and  ineffective 
scale  the  traditions  of  the  Hohenstaufen  age. 


170  MEDIEVAL  CHURCH  HISTORY 

The  Schism 

Though  the  popes  seemed  securely  established  in 
Avignon,  the  stability  of  the  arrangement  was  not 
assured.  In  the  first  place,  the  exile  outraged  public 
opinion.  Literary  men,  such  as  Petrarch  and  devout 
personalities  such  as  St.  Bridget  of  Sweden,  demanded 
that  the  pope  should  no  longer  live  away  from  his 
see.  Absenteeism,  too,  had  worked  disaster  on  papal 
territory  in  Italy;  so  much  so  that  Innocent  VI  (1352- 
1362)  had  sent  an  army  under  Cardinal  Albornoz  to 
overcome  his  revolted  subjects.  Rome  and  other 
cities  of  the  patrimony  were  now  republics.  Though 
the  cardinal's  campaign  was  successful,  the  presence 
of  the  pope  was  needed  to  complete  it.  Besides  the 
positive  advantages  of  the  Avignon  residence  as  a 
secure  place  could  no  longer  be  maintained  after  the 
city  had  been  besieged  by  a  large  band  of  freebooters 
in  1370,  and  only  saved  from  assault  by  the  payment 
of  a  heavy*  ransom.  It  had  been  ravaged  also  by  the 
plague.  These  unfavorable  local  conditions  were 
accentuated  by  the  decline  of  the  French  monarchy 
itself,  which,  because  of  the  war  with  England,  could 
no  longer  act  as  protector  of  the  papacy.  Urban  V 
(1362-1370)  passed  two  years  of  his  pontificate  in 
Rome,  but  allowed  himself,  through  the  influence  of 
the  French  cardinals,  to  take  up  again  his  residence  in 
Avignon  where  he  died  two  months  after  his  return. 
His  successor,  Gregory  XI  (1370- 1378),  alarmed  by 
the  news  that  Italian  Guelfs  and  Ghibellines  alike 


DECLINE  OF  THE  HILDEBRANDINE  PAPA  CY    171 

were  plotting  to  destroy  the  Temporal  Power,  and 
influenced,  too,  by  the  incessant  and  powerful  appeals 
from  St.  Catherine  of  Siena,  whose  virtue  and  piety 
made  her,  despite  her  youth,  a  powerful  ally  of  those 
who  demanded  that  Avignon  be  abandoned,  returned 
finally  to  Rome  (i377)- 

This  abnormal  period  of  absenteeism  had  hardly 
closed  when  a  far  worse  situation  was  inaugurated  by 
a  schism  in  the  Church.  Gregory's  sucessor,  Urban 
VI,  an  Italian,  was  elected  in  Rome  under  circum- 
stances of  popular  commotion,  because  of  which  it  was 
claimed  the  Conclave  had  not  been  free  to  follow  its 
own  choice.  This  claim  did  not  occur  to  the  cardinals 
until  they  found  that  the  new  pope  was  bad-tempered 
and  dictatorial  and  in  no  way  inclined  to  treat  them 
as  members  of  a  privileged  corporation  in  which  the 
pope  would  figure  as  the  presiding  officer.  A  new 
Conclave  was  held  by  the  seceding  cardinals,  all 
Frenchmen,  who  proceeded  to  elect  a  French-speaking 
pope,  Clement  VI,  who,  after  vainly  trying  to  get 
possession  of  Rome,  withdrew  to  Avignon.  There 
were  now  two  ecclesiastical  capitals  of  western 
Christendom  with  a  divided  allegiance,  the  southern 
countries,  on  the  whole,  following  the  obedience  of 
the  Avignon  pope  while  northern  lands,  except  Scot- 
land, accepted  Urban.  The  situation  was  intolerable 
from  every  point  of  view,  and  the  discontent  was 
widely  extended  when  both  curial  systems  made  it 
their  object  to  secure  revenues  and  financial  resources 
equal  in  amount  to  those  of  an  undivided  Church. 


172  MEDIEVAL  CHURCH  HISTORY 

As  both  the  lines  of  succession  were  continued  after 
the  deaths  of  the  first  two  rival  popes,  the  University 
of  Paris,  because  of  its  weight  as  a  centre  of  theo- 
logical learning,  began  to  act  as  the  receiving  point 
for  protests  from  every  country,  and  then  through  its 
famous  teachers,  D'Ailly,  Gerson  and  Conrad,  set  to 
work  to  provide  a  remedy.  Three  courses  were  sug- 
gested: the  voluntary  abdication  of  the  two  compet- 
itors, arbitration,  and  a  general  council.  It  was 
resolved  to  try  all  three  in  succession,  the  first  pro- 
posal being  regarded  as  the  simplest.  The  Avignon 
pope  refused  to  abdicate,  though  his  Roman  rival 
proved  more  conciliatory.  In  1394  prospects  of  an 
accommodation  seemed  more  hopeful  when  the  cardi- 
nals at  Avignon,  when  about  to  proceed  to  a  new 
election,  agreed  that,  one  and  all,  they  would  work 
for  a  restoration  of  unity.  Their  influence  was  not 
sufficient,  for  their  nominee,  Benedict  XIII,  refused 
from  the  time  of  his  election  to  that  of  his  death,  a 
period  of  thirty  years,  to  make  any  concession  what- 
ever, even  when  his  most  important  supporters 
deserted  him.  The  plan  of  a  compromise  was  taken 
up,  but  the  diplomatic  moves  on  both  sides  dragged 
on  to  such  length  that  finally  a  council  was  held  at 
Pisa  in  1409,  by  which  both  popes  were  deposed  as 
heretics  on  the  ground  that  they  had  denied  the  article 
of  the  Creed  that  expresses  belief  **in  one  holy  and 
apostolic  church." 


DECLINE  OF  THE  HILDEBRANDINE  PAPACY    173 

The  Conciliar  Movement 

After  this  action  a  conciliar  pope  was  chosen, 
Alexander  V,  soon  to  be  succeeded  by  Balthazar 
Cossa,  an  ambitious,  intriguing,  military  and  militant 
cardinal,  who  took  as  his  papal  name  John  XXIII. 
The  conciliar  pope  was  now  recognized  by  German 
imperial  lands,  by  France  and  England.  Spain  and 
Scotland  remained  faithful  to  the  obdurate  Benedict, 
while  Naples  and  most  of  the  Italian  states  were 
attached  to  Gregory  XI,  who  was  of  the  Roman  suc- 
cession. On  his  election  John  had  agreed  to  work  for 
church  reform,  but  his  apathy  and  untrustworthiness 
proved  that  nothing  was  to  be  hoped  from  his  co- 
operation. Accordingly  the  Emperor  Sigismund  in- 
tervened so  energetically  that  a  great  international 
council  met  at  Constance  (141 8)  which,  acting  on  its 
own  initiative,  demanded  the  abdication  of  all  three 
popes.  Very  strong  anti-papal  feeling  was  also  mani- 
fested in  the  means  adopted  to  prevent  the  mass  of 
Italian  members  from  controlling  the  meetings.  Each 
nation  had  the  same  voting  weight  and  the  council 
was  divided  into  four  great  groups,  Germans,  Eng- 
lish, French,  and  Italians.  John  fled  from  the  ses- 
sions when  he  saw  that  he  was  required  to  send  in 
his  abdication,  and  the  council  then  voted  that,  as  its 
authority  was  derived  from  Christ  himself,  the  pope 
was  bound  to  obey  it  in  all  matters  that  pertained  to 
reform,  the  schism  and  the  articles  of  the  faith. 

John  was  finally  deposed,  but,  owing  to  the  national 


174  MEDIAEVAL  CHURCH  HISTORY 

jealousies  which  followed,  it  was  resolved,  against  the 
wishes  of  the  English  and  the  Germans,  to  proceed 
to  an  election  of  a  new  pope,  before  working  on  a  pro- 
gramme of  reform.  The  candidate  selected,  Martin 
V,  was  an  Italian,  Cardinal  Colonna,  who  managed, 
by  making  use  of  the  self-interested  aims  of  the  va- 
rious countries  represented  in  the  council,  to  protect 
the  existing  prerogatives  of  the  papacy.  Special  ar- 
rangements called  Concordats  were  made,  governing 
the  relations  between  the  papacy  and  the  various 
national  churches,  so  prepared  that  the  demands  of 
the  secular  governments  were  satisfied,  particularly 
in  regard  to  the  exercise  of  patronage,  papal  taxation, 
indulgences,  and  appeals,  with  the  result  that  an 
effective  block  was  raised  against  any  general  meas- 
ures of  church  reform.  The  actual  reforming  decrees 
were  superficial  and  partial ;  only  a  few  abuses  were 
removed ;  for  example,  limitations  were  placed  on  the 
pope's  right  to  name  cardinals,  on  the  practice  of 
reservations,  and  appeals,  but  the  annates  still  con- 
tinued on,  and  most  of  the  reforms  were  to  be  con- 
tinued only  five  years  and  their  renewal  was  made 
dependent  upon  the  will  of  the  pope.  The  only 
effective  check  upon  papal  power  was  a  provision  for 
the  regular  calling  of  a  general  council. 

Wyclif 

Many  of  the  sessions  of  the  meeting  at  Constance 
were  devoted  to  the  subject  of  heresy,  as  it  was  repre- 
sented in  the  teaching  of  Huss,  the  Bohemian  disciple 


DECLINE  OF  THE  HILDEBRANDINE  PAPA  CY    175 

of  Wyclif,  the  English  reformer,  whose  position  must 
be  briefly  described.  During  the  Avignon  papacy, 
with  its  French  tendencies,  there  had  arisen  in  Eng- 
land a  strong  anti-papal  sentiment  which  expressed 
itself  in  various  parliamentary  acts,  all  intended  to 
affect  the  financial  resources  of  the  Curia.  The 
statute  of  Provisors  forbade  the  acceptance  of  papal 
"provisions"  (1343-1365),  restricted  questions  of 
patronage  to  the  king's  courts,  while  the  statutes  of 
^•praemunire"  (1343- 1365)  threatened  severe  penalties 
on  any  who  acted  contrary  to  the  above  statutes,  and 
stated  that  places  "provided"  by  the  pope  should  be 
filled  by  royal  nominees  at  the  same  time.  The  papal 
tax  in  1366,  which  had  been  imposed  as  a  result  of 
John's  acceptance  of  his  crown  as  liegeman  of  the 
pope,  was  ordered  by  parliament  to  be  abolished 
forever. 

While  the  central  organization  of  the  Church  was 
menaced  by  these  measures,  there  arose  as  well  a 
strong  anti-clerical  movement  against  the  national 
Church  itself.  The  old  alliance  between  the  barons 
and  the  hierarchy  had  been  broken  because  of  the 
constant  extension  of  jurisdiction  on  the  part  of  the 
ecclesiastical  courts.  Moreover,  the  long  war  with 
France  had  brought  with  it  much  financial  distress, 
and  it  was  felt  that  the  Church,  which  owned  from  one 
fourth  to  one  third  of  all  the  land  in  England,  should 
be  made  to  pay  its  share  of  taxation.  Even  more  rad- 
ical were  the  proposals  in  the  parliament  of  1 375-1 376, 
when    complete    secularization    was    contemplated. 


176  MEDIEVAL  CHURCH  HISTORY 

The  most  affective  champion  of  the  anti-clerical  pro- 
gramme was  John  Wyclif,  a  teacher  at  Oxford  and 
priest  of  Lutterworth,  one  of  the  best  livings  in  the 
diocese.  In  a  mass  of  writings  Wyclif  attacked  the 
abuses  of  the  clergy  and  gave  a  scholastic  basis  to  the 
anti-papal  and  anti-clerical  campaign.  His  principal 
argumentative  points  were  directed  against  ownership 
of  landed  property  by  the  Church  and  the  appeal  to 
any  other  authority  than  that  of  the  Old  and  New 
Testament.  The  Church,  he  contended,  was  corrupt, 
while  the  real  kingdom  of  God  was  the  mystical  body 
of  the  Elect.  Owing  to  the  systematic  violation 
by  the  clergy  of  the  apostolic  precepts  of  poverty  as 
a  rule  of  conduct,  they  were  to  be  regarded  as  dis- 
loyal vassals  of  God's  law  and  should  therefore,  as 
felons  and  as  guilty  of  mortal  sin,  be  deprived  by  the 
civil  authorities  of  their  privileged  position. 

All  attempts  to  bring  Wyclif  to  recant  before 
ecclesiastical  tribunals  failed  through  the  inter- 
vention of  his  powerful  friends  among  the  nobility 
and  the  middle  classes.  Before  his  death  in  1384, 
Wyclif  had  translated  the  Bible  into  English,  had 
conducted  an  able  and  bitter  polemic  against  the 
papacy,  which  he  contended  was  unscriptural,  and 
criticised  the  mendicant  orders  and  the  popular  re- 
ligious customs  and  beliefs  of  his  day.  He  arranged 
also  for  the  extension  of  his  propaganda  by  estab- 
lishing bands  of  "Poor  Priests",  popularly  called  Lol- 
lards. The  chief  propositions  in  Wyclif's  teaching 
were  formally  condemned  by  a  provincial  council  in 


DECLINE  OF  THE  HILDEBRANDINE  PAPACY    177 

1382,  but  no  assistance  was  given  by  the  State  in 
carrying  out  its  mandates.  It  was  not  till  a  change 
of  dynasty,  by  the  accession  of  Henry  IV,  that  active 
measures  were  taken  against  LoUardy  through  the 
introduction  into  England  of  the  whole  continental 
machinery  of  the  inquisition  in  the  famous  parlia- 
mentary statute,  De  Comburendo  Hceretico. 

Huss 

The  passage  of  Wyclif's  teaching  from  England 
to  Bohemia  was  facilitated  by  a  marriage  between  the 
royal  families  of  both  countries.  Wyclif's  work 
became  known  at  the  University  of  Prague  where 
John  Huss  was  a  lecturer.  His  adoption  of  a  part  of 
Wyclif's  view,  added  to  the  fact  that  he  was  an 
earnest  upholder  of  the  rights  of  Czech  naturalism 
against  the  Germans,  brought  Huss  into  conflict  with 
the  civil  and  ecclesiastical  authorities  of  his  own  land. 
Tumultuous  outbreaks  were  frequent  in  Prague  as  a 
result  of  Huss's  powerful  indictments  against  the 
abuses  of  the  papal  system,  indulgences  and  the  like. 
Inspired  by  a  sincere  belief  in  the  justice  of  his  cause, 
Huss  was  induced  to  accept  a  safe  conduct  to  the 
Council  of  Constance,  which  he  hoped,  because  of 
its  attitude  towards  the  papacy,  to  bring  over  to  his 
position.  Here,  after  a  trial  which  was  but  a  travesty 
of  justice,  Huss  was  condemned  and  burnt  as  a 
heretic  on  charges  which  specifically  concerned  his 
teaching  on  the  authority  of  tradition  and  the  sover- 
eignty of  the  pope  (July  6,  141 5).  This  execution 
13 


178  MEDIEVAL  CHURCH  HISTORY 

was  soon  followed  by  that  of  Huss's  disciple  Jerome, 
whose  abjuration  did  not  save  him  from  the  vindictive 
persecution  of  the  members  of  the  council.  Probably 
in  both  cases  there  was  a  willingness  to  make  an  ex- 
ample of  the  Hussites,  in  order  to  convince  public 
opinion  that  the  general  attitude  of  the  council 
towards  the  papacy,  in  spite  of  its  drastic  dealing  with 
individual  popes,  was  thoroughly  orthodox. 

The  Council  of  Basel 

Though  provision  had  been  made,  as  we  have  men- 
tioned, for  the  regular  calling  of  councils,  it  was  not 
until  1 43 1,  at  Basel,  after  a  premature  attempt  had 
been  made  at  Pavia  in  1421,  that  another  great  inter- 
national synod  was  summoned  to  meet.  The  subjects 
on  the  official  agenda  were  church  reform,  the  extir- 
pation of  the  Hussite  movement,  which  by  this  time 
had  virtually  created  a  religious  revolution  in  Bo- 
hemia, and  reunion  with  the  Eastern  Church.  Some 
progress  was  made  with  the  Bohemian  difficulty. 
When  the  council  began  its  work  of  reform  and  passed 
measures  to  reduce  the  pope  to  the  position  of  a 
purely  administrative  official,  Eugenius  IV  replied  by 
transferring  the  council  to  Italy  where  the  influence 
of  Italian  episcopate  might  be  more  effectively  exerted. 
The  majority  of  the  members  refused  to  cross  the 
Alps  and  proceeded  to  summon  the  pope  for  his  re- 
fusal to  obey  the  council's  mandate.  A  minority, 
however,  went  to  Italy,— first  to  Ferrara,  then  to 
Florence,—  where  an  act  of  Union  was  drawn  up  by 


DECLINE  OF  THE  HILDEBRANDINE  PAPA CY    179 

which  the  schism  between  East  and  West  was  sup- 
posed to  be  ended.  At  this  meeting  the  distressing 
state  of  the  beggarly  fragment  of  the  Eastern  Empire 
caused  the  Greek  emperor  to  urge  his  bishops  to 
accept  the  terms  of  union,  and  many  of  the  Easterns 
were  persuaded  to  acknowledge  papal  claims  on  the 
basis  of  falsified  extracts,  made  from  the  acts  of  early 
synods  and  from  Greek  patristic  writers.  While  the 
Easterns  at  Florence  acknowledged  the  validity  of 
Western  custom  and  doctrines  and  accepted  papal 
autocracy,  they  were  allowed  to  retain  their  liturgy, 
clerical  marriage,  and  were  not  obliged  to  use  the 
"Filioque"  in  the  Creed  (July  1439). 

By  this  time  the  Council  of  Basel  had  suspended  and 
deposed  Eugenius,  and  a  few  months  later  another 
schism  began  in  the  Western  Church  through  the 
election  on  the  part  of  the  council  of  Amadius  of 
Savoy  as  pope,  who  took  the  title  of  Felix  V.  As 
the  new  conciliar  pope  secured  only  a  moderate  sup- 
port among  the  chief  European  countries,  the  mem- 
bers of  the  council  itself  were  divided  on  the  subject 
as  to  who  was  the  rightful  pope.  There  now  followed 
a  period  of  active  diplomacy  in  which  Eugenius,  by 
making  large  concessions  to  all  the  princely  supporters 
of  Felix  on  the  subject  of  church  patronage,  finance 
and  appeals,  won  them  over,  and  finally  his  successor, 
Nicholas  V,  was  relieved  from  all  further  concession 
of  conciliar  antagonism  because  of  the  forcible 
breaking  up  of  the  remnant  of  the  Basel  Council 
by  the  Emperor  Frederick  III.     Felix  V  abdicated 


180  MEDIAEVAL  CHURCH  HISTORY 

and  accepted  the  cardinalate  from  his  rival.  As  to 
the  act  of  union  with  the  Greeks,  it  was  treated  as  a 
dead  letter  in  the  East  when  the  conquest  of  Con- 
stantinople showed  that  no  real  military  aid  against 
the  Turk  was  to  be  expected  from  the  nations  of 
western  Europe. 

The  Renaissance  Papacy 

Nicholas  V  begins  the  line  of  humanistic  popes  who 
usher  in  the  period  of  the  Reformation.  More  than 
one  of  his  successors  tried  to  revive  the  crusading 
adventure,  but  with  no  result.  At  the  beginning  of 
the  last  quarter  of  the  fifteenth  century,  the  papacy 
had  sunk  to  the  level  of  an  Italian  secular  principality. 
The  popes  of  this  age  were  devoted  to  the  task  of 
looking  out  for  the  promotion  of  their  relatives,  con- 
cerned with  the  enlargement  of  their  temporal  do- 
mains, or  busied  with  the  intrigues  of  small  Italian 
courts.  Sometimes  they  were  notorious  examples  of 
evil  living,  and  even  in  the  case  of  the  best  of  them 
they  seemed  oblivious  of  their  obligations  to  Christi- 
anity as  a  whole.  The  demand  for  reform  was  in- 
cessant, but  as  the  councils  had  failed  to  secure  it 
there  appeared  no  chance  of  realizing  the  hopes  of  a 
change.  The  councils  represented  internationalism, 
while  the  whole  movement  of  the  age  was  towards 
nationalism.  The  demand  for  conciliar  action  as 
the  solution  for  church  difficulties  was  becoming  as 
unreal  as  the  proclamation  of  a  crusade  against  the 
infidel. 


DECLINE  OF  THE  HILDEBRANDINE  PAPA  CY    181 

What  one  nation  could  do  by  itself  to  set  its  house 
in  order  may  be  seen  from  the  contents  of  the  Prag- 
matic Sanction  of  Bourges  (7th  June,  1438),  which 
established  the  basis  for  a  French  national  Church  in 
communion  with  but  not  dependent  upon  Rome,  in 
the  Hildebrandine  sense.  This  document  elaborated 
with  legal  definitencss  the  following  points: — regular 
meetings  of  a  general  council ;  the  rights  of  the 
episcopate,  and  of  the  national  Church  generally,  in 
its  relation  with  the  papacy;  and  the  emphasis  on  the 
power  of  the  crown  over  the  clergy  in  matters  of 
finance  and  judicature.  In  Spain  the  process  of 
developing  royal  control  over  the  Church  went  even 
further,  for  the  machinery  of  the  Inquisition  itself  was 
turned  over  with  papal  consent  to  the  crown  and  it 
became  a  regular  part  of  the  royal  administration. 
All  important  patronage  was  controlled  by  the  mon- 
arch, and  no  papal  bull  could  be  recognized  as  valid 
within  the  borders  of  Spain  without  the  royal 
"placet".  In  southern  Italy,  when  it  fell  under 
Spanish  control,  the  claim  was  made  that  all  ecclesi- 
astical acts  pertaining  to  the  pope  should  be  exercised 
by  the  king,  and  although  this  right  was  never 
formally  acknowledged  by  the  Curia,  the  Spanish 
system  of  church  control  was  tacitly  allowed. 

The  Trend  Towards  Reform 

In  England,  after  the  conclusion  of  the  civil  war 
that  devastated  the  country  for  so  long  in  the  fifteenth 
century,   the  destruction  of  the  power  of  the  aris- 


182  MEDIEVAL  CHURCH  HISTORY 

tocracy  which  was  one  result  of  the  war,  prepared  the 
way  for  monarchical  absolutism,  but  the  details  of 
church  policy  could  not  be  worked  out  till  the  next 
century.  It  is  interesting  to  note  how  under  a 
a  changed  atmosphere  Henry  VIII  applied  in  Eng- 
land the  system  of  monarchical  control  of  the  Church 
which  the  rulers  of  the  continent  had  already 
introduced.  As  Germany  was  not  a  unified  nation 
under  a  central  executive,  the  extension  of  State  con- 
trol did  not  go  on  there  as  systematically  as  in  Spain 
and  France,  yet  the  territorial  sovereigns  were  able 
very  considerably  to  limit  the  interference  of  the 
central  machinery  of  the  Church  in  their  particular 
districts. 

In  spite  of  the  Italianization  of  the  papacy  and  the 
deliberate  application  of  the  national  principle  out- 
lined above,  it  is  a  mistake  to  represent  the  close  of 
the  Middle  Ages  as  a  period  in  which  the  Church  and 
church  influence  were  on  the  decline.  The  appreci- 
ation of  unity  had  been  impaired  but  not  destroyed, 
for  it  was  still  too  deep  rooted,  and  though  the  polit- 
ical victories  of  the  pope  had  caused  them  to  accept 
nothing  higher  than  the  standards  of  local  Italian  state 
life,  the  papacy  itself  was  still  a  potent  factor  to  be 
reckoned  with  in  diplomacy  and  in  religious  organi- 
zation. A  distinction  was  made  between  the  insti- 
tution and  the  individual  who  wielded  the  power.  In 
all  projects  of  reform,  the  idea  that  the  central  organ 
by  which  the  Church  was  directed  could  be  neglected 
as  an  unnecessary  factor  was  still  remote,  or  at  least 


DECLINE  OF  THE  HILDEBRANDINE  PAPACY    183 

had  no  wide  recognition.  Not  only  were  the  great 
religious  orders  still  active,  but  many  had  gone 
through  a  real  process  of  revival,  notably  the  Bene- 
dictines and  the  Canons  Regular,  especially  in 
Germany.  Efforts,  consistent  and  effective,  were 
made  to  restore  the  original  aims  of  the  mendicant 
orders.  Among  the  men  who  took  part  in  this  work 
may  be  mentioned  the  great  revivalist  preacher, 
Vincent  Ferrer,  the  Spanish  Dominican  (1357-1419), 
and  the  Franciscan  Bernardino  of  Siena,  who  con- 
ducted a  famous  campaign  against  luxury  in  the  chief 
towns  of  Italy  during  the  period  of  the  councils. 

Savonarola  and  Other  Reformers 
Within  the  Church 

Most  remarkable  among  all  popular  preachers  was 
Savonarola  (b.  1452),  a  Dominican,  who  in  Florence  for 
many  years  preached  against  corruption  in  Church  and 
State.  Inspired  by  his  constant  reading  of  \\tt.  Old 
Testament  prophecy  and  influenced  by  the  Apoca- 
lyptic writings  of  Joachim,  Savonarola  clothed  his 
own  teaching  in  prophetical  language  and  experienced 
visions  in  which  were  foreshadowed  a  coming  reform, 
root  and  banch,  both  of  State  and  Church.  His  own 
practical  interpretation  of  these  experiences  was  that 
he  was  bound  to  support  French  intervention  in  Italy 
and  procure  the  expulsion  of  the  Medici  from  Florence. 
It  was  not  difficult  from  the  point  of  view  of  either 
morals  or  politics  to  hold  up  Pope  Alexander  VI  to 
execration,  and  Savonarola   made  good    use    of    his 


184  MEDIEVAL  CHURCH  HISTORY 

opportunity.  When  a  papal  excommunication  was 
issued  against  him  in  1497,  no  heed  was  paid  to  it 
either  by  Savonarola  himself  or  the  city  authorities. 
Later  on,  as  the  result  of  political  shiftings,  when 
Florence  found  it  useful  to  secure  the  pope  as  an  ally, 
Savonarola  was  forbidden  by  the  government  to  preach. 
He  appealed  openly  to  a  General  Council  as  the  sole 
organ  of  reform ;  and,  later  on,  when  his  personal 
enemies  secured  a  dominant  voice  in  the  control  of 
Florence,  Savonarola  and  his  friend  Domenicho, 
were  condemned  on  most  questionable  evidence  and 
executed  (28th  May,  1498).  Of  an  entirely  distinct 
type  from  the  movement  led  by  the  great  Dominican 
monk  in  Florence  was  the  current  of  religious  en- 
thusiasm which  as  an  outcome  of  St.  Bernardino's 
ministry  of  conversion  passed  into  France.  Its  most 
attractive  figure  is  the  famous  Joan  of  Arc,  in  whose 
unique  personality  there  was  found  a  remarkable 
combination  of  cool,  clear-headed  common  sense  and 
the  convictions  of  a  nafve  mysticism.  She  was  a  great 
military  leader  and  also  a  teacher  of  national  right- 
eousness in  its  most  direct  form.  Her  place  in  re- 
ligious history  belongs  by  the  side  of  Catherine  of 
Siena  and  St.  Bridget  of  Sweden,  both  of  whom  had 
strongly  influenced  for  good  the  political  life  of  the 
preceding  century.  Another  reforming  movement  is 
associated  with  the  name  of  Gerhard  Groot  of  De- 
venter  (d.  1384),  who  on  the  simple  basis  of  a  few 
rules  without  vows  founded  a  community  called 
the  Brethren  of  the    Common    Life.      Asceticism, 


DECLINE  OF  THE  HILDEBRANDINE  PAPACY   185 

mystical  religion  and  the  preparation  of  books  of  a 
religious  and  edifying  character  were  the  chief  factor 
in  this  revival,  which  centred  about  the  Low  Countries 
and  adjacent  German  lands.  The  community's  name 
has  attained  a  lasting  renown  through  its  association 
with  the  '^Imitation  of  Christ",  probably  the  work  of 
Thomas  von  Kempen. 

While  this  quietist  tendency  influenced  at  best  only 
a  few,  popular  devotional  zeal  centred  chiefly  on 
subjects  that  had  a  more  direct  appeal  to  the  senses, 
such  as  reliques,  rosaries,  the  cult  of  patron  saints, 
which  last  was  specially  promoted  by  various  brother- 
hoods and  guilds.  Equally  in  favor  was  the  practice 
of  making  pilgrimages  to  local  or  international  shrines, 
particularly  where  the  working  of  miracles  was 
promised.  The  extraordinary  popularity  of  in- 
dulgences still  continued  unabated ;  since  they  were 
a  source  of  assured  income  they  were  used  by  the 
Curia  for  providing  for  the  building  of  the  new 
basilica  of  St.  Peter's  in  Rome.  In  order  to  create  a 
wider  field  of  support,  the  theory  was  developed  that 
indulgences  might,  by  "the  papal  magisterium",  be 
extended  to  the  benefit  of  the  dead,  though  authorities 
were  by  no  means  clear  as  to  the  character  or  certainty 
of  the  benefit. 

Witchcraft 

Deteriorating  as  was  the  indulgence  system,  a  far 
darker  side  of  popular  religion  comes  to  the  surface  in 
the  belief  in  witches  because  of  the  influence  that  belief 


186  MEDIEVAL  CHURCH  HISTORY 

had  in  intensifying  the  apparently  instinctive  tendency 
in  man  towards  religious  persecution.  At  an  earlier 
period  the  Church  authorities  had  opposed  altogether 
the  belief  in  witchcraft,  but  by  the  time  of  Thomas 
Acquinas  it  had  become  formally  incorporated  in  the 
mediaeval  dogmatic  system.  One  begins  to  find 
mention  of  proceedings  against  witchcraft  by  the 
Inquisition  in  France  in  the  thirteenth  century.  But 
the  great  extension  of  repressive  measures  is  con- 
nected with  the  names  of  two  German  Dominican 
professors,  Heinrich  Institoris  and  Jakob  Sprenger, 
who,  at  the  close  of  the  fifteenth  century,  secured 
papal  approval  for  their  campaign  against  witchcraft 
and  inaugurated  the  first  en  masse  burning  of 
witches.  As  they  worked  out  their  theories  and 
procedure  in  a  ponderous  volume,  the  Malleus  Male- 
ficorum,  it  was  possible  for  them  to  spread  the  seeds 
of  this  deplorable  practice,  and  to  draw  after  them  in 
the  mania  for  witch  persecution,  not  only  popular 
sympathy  but  the  cooperation  of  learned  men  and  the 
active  support  of  the  State. 

Later  Scholasticism 

In  intellectual  productivity  the  close  of  the  Middle 
Ages  is  marked  by  the  decline  of  scholasticism  and 
the  rise  of  humanism.  Scholasticism,  it  may  be  said 
broadly  (there  were,  be  it  remembered,  numbers  of 
scholastic  teachers  all  through  this  period),  had  run 
its  course,  so  far  as  names  of  the  first  calibre  are  con- 
cerned, with  Duns  Scotus  (d.  1308)  and  William  of 


DECLINE  OF  THE  HILDEBRANDINE  PAPACY    187 

Occam  (d.  1349).  The  first  gave  primacy  to  the 
Will  over  the  Understanding.  As  the  process  of 
willing  is  absolutely  free  and  in  no  way  determined 
by  the  factor  of  the  intellect,  morality  is  placed  higher 
than  theoretical  speculation.  Applying  this  inde- 
terminism  to  God,  His  Will  cannot  be  adequately 
described  in  terms  of  dialectic;  hence  there  may  be 
truths  which  cannot  be  established  by  the  reason  but 
may  be  accepted  on  faith.  Adopting  this  fundamental 
division  of  Scotus,  Occam  subjected  it  to  a  careful 
epistemological  analysis.  Ideas  had,  he  insisted,  no 
relation  to  reality  and  all  general  terms  are  purely 
arbitrary,  for  they  do  not  correspond  to  any  particular 
sensation.  As  reason  cannot  by  its  very  consti- 
tution penetrate  into  either  the  sphere  of  the  sensible 
or  the  supersensible,  all  articles  of  faith  must  depend 
on  authority.  Any  kind  of  dogma  might  be  ac- 
cepted. Granting  the  Will  of  God  is  arbitrary,  as 
Scotus  showed,  Occam's  addition  to  this  theory 
made  it  impossible  to  trace  any  rational  connection 
between  the  various  items  of  the  Church's  teaching. 
As  applied  to  the  actual  polity  of  State  and  Church, 
Occam's  theories  were  as  effective  in  destroying  the 
existing  order  of  mediaeval  life  as  were  the  teachings 
of  the  pre-revolutionary  French  philosophers  in  over- 
turning all  monarchical  absolutism.  The  sphere  of 
Church  and  State  were,  he  said,  entirely  distinct,  and 
in  case  of  conflict,  utility  alone  must  decide. 
When  necessary  the  pope  might  depose  princes  and 
transfer  kingdoms,  but  as  the  well-being  of  the  Church 


188  MEDIEVAL  CHURCH  HISTORY 

was  the  supreme  law,  the  organization  of  the  Church 
could  be  varied  to  suit  new  conditions.  Instead  of  a 
centralized  Church  he  thought  there  might  be  a  nexus 
of  national  churches.  As  faith  was  supreme  in  all 
matters  connected  with  religion,  any  prince  or  lay- 
man, provided  he  had  the  orthodox  faith,  could  exercise 
supreme  control  over  the  Church.  Christ  had  never 
promised  that  right  faith  should  be  continued  in  the 
whole  Church,  or  that  the  pope  or  hierarchy  should 
endure.  Christ's  promise  might  be  fulfilled  if  little 
children  believed.  Though  a  General  Council  was 
not  infallible,  it  could  sit  in  judgement  on  the  pope, 
and  in  matters  of  faith,  the  faithful  laity  or  their 
representatives,  the  princes,  might  be  called  upon  to 
defend  and  preserve  the  Faith. 

It  will  be  seen  how  this  powerful  plea  for  indi- 
vidualism remained  dormant  for  many  decades  before 
it  became  the  foundation-stone  of  the  continental  re- 
forming movement. 

Humanism 

However  acute  and  radical  was  the  last  stage  of 
scholasticism,  in  its  most  brilliant  representative, 
Occam  (who  may  be  called  the  mediaeval  Hume),  a 
more  potent  dissolvent  of  the  accepted  principles  of 
society  in  Church  and  State  was  the  Humanistic 
Movement.  It  is  of  course  untrue  to  associate  the 
recovery  of  the  knowledge  of  ancient  literature  with 
any  one  century.  Sylvester  II,  the  tenth  century 
pope,  was  probably  in  technical  scholarship  the  equal 


DECLINE  OF  THE  HILDEBRANDINE  PAPACY   189 


of  many  of  the  famous  Humanists.     Humanism  means 
not  merely  the  reading  of  the  classics  but  reading 
them  with  certain  presuppositions.     How  these  pre- 
suppositions arose  is  more  or  less  of  a  problem.    Nega- 
tively, they  may  have  been  due  to  the  widely  felt 
pressure  of  papal  autocracy.     Unqestionably,  Human- 
ism represents  the  right  of  the  laity  to  think  and  act 
independently  of  clerical  control,  and  the  laity  became 
conscious  of   these  rights  when   they  were  brought 
under  the  influence  of   classical  literary  traditions. 
Through  these  traditions  the  laity  became  acquainted 
in  the  most  impressive  way  with   a  period    of   the 
world's   history   where    the    political    and   religious 
watchwords   of   mediaeval   life   had   no   significance. 
The   great  Italian  Humanist,  Petrarch  (i304-i374)» 
appealed  on  the  basis  of  classical  culture  to  men's 
claims  for  self-development  outside  of  the  lines  of  the 
Church's  speculative  thought.     In  order  to  find  the 
beautiful,  the  worthy  and  the  interesting,  the   best 
standards  of  classical  antiquity  must  be  sought  for; 
hence  the  enthusiasm  for  recovering  the  literary  and 
artistic  remains  of  the  early  Roman  Empire  which 
was  common  throughout  Italy  and  probably  through 
the  international  intercourse  facilitated  by  the  coun- 
cils penetrated  into  northern  lands. 

As  scholars  began  to  be  trained  in  the  investigation 
of  the  classic  past,  it  was  natural  that  the  principles 
of  historical  criticism  should  be  applied  to  the  records 
of  the  Church  itself.  So  Laurentius  Valla  (1407- 
1457)  exposed  the  forgery  of  the  Constantinian  Do- 


190  MEDIEVAL  CHURCH  HISTORY 

nation  and  the  pseudo-Isidorian  decretals  began  to  be 
suspected  about  the  same  time  by  Torquemada;  in- 
deed Valla  did  not  hesitate  to  question  whether  the 
Apostles'  Creed  was  of  apostolic  origin.  Through  the 
study  of  Plato,  due  to  the  Latin  translation  made  by 
Ficino  of  Florence,  the  whole  dialectical  structure  of 
scholastic  theology  lost  its  authoritative  sanction.  In 
its  place  men  began  to  appeal  to  a  new  line  of  Chris- 
tian thought  which  might  be  constructed,  inde- 
pendently of  church  tradition,  from  the  actual  writ- 
ings of  St.  Augustine  and  St.  Paul.  Petrarch  himself 
pointed  out  the  difference  between  the  religion  of  the 
New  Testament  and  the  patristic  period  and  that  pre- 
sented by  Scholasticism.  The  prevailing  tendency 
of  Humanism  was  away  from  institutionalism  towards 
individualism  in  religion,  though  there  is  no  general 
classification  possible  of  humanistic  thought.  Some 
of  its  representatives  were  pure  classicists,  interested 
in  questions  of  style  or  in  antiquarian  lore;  some  kept 
their  peace  with  the  Church,  while  others  cut  them- 
selves loose  from  it  and  were  contemptuous  both  of 
religion  and  morality.  In  nothern  lands  the  trend  of 
humanistic  teaching  emphasized  its  educational  and 
ethical  value. 

The  Christian  East 

Brief  mention  must  now  be  made  of  the  Christian 
East  which  has  only  entered  the  limits  of  this  chapter 
in  connection  with  the  councils  of  Ferrara  and  Flor- 
rence.     The  Tartar  conquest  resulted  in  a  wide  ex- 


DECLINE  OF  THE  HILDEBRANDINE  PAPA  CY    191 

pansion  of  Russian  Christianity  both  north  and  east, 
and  many  monasteries  were  built  in  the  new  lands 
acquired  by  Russian  settlers.  This  movement  is 
specifically  marked  by  the  transfer  of  the  Metro- 
politan of  Kiev  (who  was  still  named  by  the  Patri- 
arch of  Constantinople)  to  Moscow  in  1325,  though 
the  title  of  the  old  see  was  still  preserved.  Further 
advances  westward  were  obstructed  by  the  rise  of  the 
Polish  kingdom — after  the  defeat  of  the  Tartar  con- 
querors— where  Latin  Christianity  was  acknowledged 
and  has  continued  to  prevail.  In  the  countries  to  the 
east  of  Hungary,  in  Moldavia  and  Wallachia,  there 
were  Latin  bishoprics  and  Franciscan  missionaries 
in  the  fourteenth  century,  and  even  the  shores  of 
the  Black  Sea,  owing  to  the  presence  there  of  Genoese 
colonies,  the  jurisdiction  of  the  Roman  See  was  ex- 
tended. In  the  farther  east,  in  Persia,  in  India,  and 
even  in  China  itself,  the  mendicant  orders  penetrated, 
and  an  archbishopric  was  founded  at  Pekin  in  1370, 
only  soon  to  disappear  because  of  the  hostility  of  the 
Keng  dynasty. 

While  this  progress  was  made  by  the  Western 
Church,  the  Easterns  were  suffering  severe  and  con- 
stant losses  through  the  steady  advace  of  the  Otto- 
man Turks,  who  after  covering  Asia  Minor  passed 
over  into  Europe  to  conquer  the  new  Slavonic  king- 
doms of  the  Balkan  peninsula.  Nothing  was  done  to 
save  the  situation  by  the  union  compact  carried 
through  at  Florence.  Russia  refused  to  accept  it  and 
declared  itself  free  from  the  Patriarch  of  Constanti- 


192  MEDIAEVAL  CHURCH  HISTORY 

nople;  in  other  Slavonic  and  in  Greek-speaking  dis- 
tricts the  Turks,  who  used  the  Eastern  Churches  as  a 
part  of  the  local  administration  to  control  their 
Christian  subjects,  encouragement  was  definitely 
given  to  those  who  opposed  union  with  the  Latin 
Church. 

The  Hussites  and  Other  Sects 

Of  the  separatist  movements  within  the  Latin  com- 
munion, the  most  active  during  the  fifteenth  century 
was  that  led  by  the  followers  of  Huss,  who  holding 
fast  to  the  principles  of  their  founder  made  the 
giving  of  the  chalice  to  the  laity  the  visible  symbol  of 
their  opposition  to  the  Church.  The  custom  of  ad- 
ministration in  one  species,  although  forbidden  by 
two  popes.  Urban  II  and  Paschal  II,  had  become 
general  and  had  been  justified  dialectically  by  Thomas 
Acquinas  and  Bonaventura.  Huss  had  made  the  ad- 
ministration of  the  chalice  a  test  of  faithfulness  to  his 
teaching.  In  the  popular  outbreaks  which  followed 
his  death,  the  clergy  who  held  to  the  practice  with- 
drew to  Tabor  near  Austi,  which  became  the  armed 
centre  of  the  Hussite  party.  Attempts  to  repress 
them  by  force  of  arms  failed  because  they  found  an 
able  champion  in  Ziska,  who  defeated  all  attempts  at 
armed  repression.  The  Hussites  soon  divided  into 
two  parties,  the  Utraquists,  who  stressed  the  adminis- 
tration of  the  chalice  but  accepted  the  existing  order 
of  the  Church,  and  the  Taborites,  who  demanded  rad- 
ical changes  in  all  doctrines  and  practices  and  stood 


\ 

DECLINE  OF  THE  HILDEBRANDINE  PAPACY   193 

for  the  repression  of  German  nationality,  a  step  which 
they  were  prepared  to  take  by  applying  precepts  of 
Old  Testament  social  morality  to  the  treatment  of 
their  enemies.  An  attempt  was  made  by  the  Council 
of  Basel  to  conciliate  the  moderate  party  by  allowing 
them  to  administer  the  chalice.  As  this  concession 
was  afterwards  rejected  by  the  papacy  constant  efforts 
were  made  to  render  it  non-effective.  In  the  mean- 
time the  radical  wing  had  been  almost  annihilated  in 
the  battle  of  Lipan  in  1434.  A  final  settlement  was 
only  reached  in  1511  when  the  Utraquist  customs 
were  allowed  to  continue  unmolested.  The  perma- 
nent influence  of  the  radical  wing,  shorn  of  its  national 
and  social  aggressiveness,  is  seen  still  in  the  Moravian 
Brethren. 

Of  the  older  dissident  organizations  the  Katharists 
had  generally  disappeared  under  the  strict  repression 
of  the  Inquisitors,  except  where  they  found  a  safe 
refuge  in  the  northern  portion  of  the  Balkan  pe- 
ninsula. The  Waldensian  stronghold  had  been 
shifted  as  a  result  of  persecution  from  southern 
France  to  the  Germanic  and  Slavonic-speaking  lands 
of  the  Empire,  where,  however,  frightful  measures  of 
repression  were  taken  against  them  at  the  close  of 
the  fifteenth  century.  In  Italy  they  still  continued 
to  exist  along  side  of  other  separatist  groups  which 
had  taken  their  origin  from  the  disturbances  already 
noted  within  the  Franciscan  order.  The  most  radi- 
cally antagonistic  of  all  were  the  Apostolic  Brothers, 
who  under  the  leadership  of  Dolcino  kept  up  armed 
14 


194  MEDIEVAL  CHURCH  HISTORY 

resistance  in  the  Piedmontese  mouii tains  until  over- 
whelmed by  a  crusade  formally  directed  against  his 
partisans. 

Julius  II  and  Leo  X 

The  sixteenth  century  opened  auspiciously  for  the 
papacy.  After  the  abandonment  of  the  Hildebrandine 
programme,  it  was  now  confining  itself  to  such  practical 
policies  as  were  possible  with  the  growth  of  vigorous 
national  states.  On  this  level  many  notable  achieve- 
ments might  be  recorded.  In  the  first  place  the  de- 
based moral  standards  of  Alexander  VI  had  not  been 
perpetuated ;  the  Borgia  influence  no  longer  existed, 
and  when  Julius  II  took  up  the  work  of  extending 
the  papal  estates,  he  did  it  not  to  help  his  family, 
but  to  make  the  temporal  power  of  the  papacy  a  po- 
tent factor  in  the  Italian  peninsula,  and  so  give  it 
important  weight  in  international  combinations. 
This  vigorous  pontiff  was  both  a  successful  general 
and  a  skilled  diplomatist.  When  his  anti-French 
policy  had  proved  irresistible  in  the  battle-field  he 
blocked  the  attempt  of  France  to  reestablish  conciliar 
supremacy  over  the  Curia  (15 12),  by  calling  the  Lat- 
eran  Council  to  discuss  under  his  dictatorial  over- 
sight various  projects  of  church  reform. 

A  milder  and  less  strenuous  age  was  introduced  by 
Leo  X,  the  scion  of  the  great  Florentine  banking 
house  of  the  Medici,  who,  while  devoting  himself  to 
the  aesthetic  cultivation  of  art  and  literature, 
showed  as  a  politician  the  efficacy  of  home  training 


DECLINE  OF  THE  HILDEBRANDINE  PAPACY    195 

by  persuading  Francis  I  of  France  to  abandon  the 
Pragmatic  Sanction  of  1438  with  its  severe  checks  on 
curial  privileges.  The  venerable  and  hardly  tried 
machinery  at  Rome  was  working  regularly ;  no  shocks 
or  catastrophes  seemed  possible.  **Let  us  enjoy  the 
Papacy,"  so  it  is  reported  the  genial  Leo  wrote  to 
his  brother  Julian,  "since  God  has  conferred  it  upon 
us."  There  was  nothing  heroic  in  the  character  of 
the  Medicean  pope,  and  unfortunately  for  him  he 
was  precipitated  suddenly  into  a  crisis  which  required 
something  more  than  Florentine  cleverness  and  dilet- 
tante aloofness. 


CHAPTER  VI. 

THE  PERIOD  OF  SEPARATION 
AND  REFORM 

UNENDING  questions  may  be  raised  and  perhaps 
partially  answered  why  the  revolt  against  the 
papacy  began  first  among  the  Germans  and  was  carried 
by  the  Germans  to  a  successful  issue.  Mere  incidents 
have  been  entitled  just  and  sufficient  causes.  The 
momentum  that  comes  from  great  personalities  is 
imponderable;  it  avoids  classification,  yet  it  maybe 
said  that  the  two  reasons  which  made  the  German 
reformation  succeed  was  first  the  popular  moral  fervor 
of  Luther  and  then  the  fact  that  the  papal  champion 
was  Charles  V,  whose  chief  aim  was  to  introduce 
Spanish  absolutism  into  the  existing  loosely  knit 
political  order  of  Germany.  The  princes  of  Ger- 
many, each  one  bent  on  securing  real  autonomy  in  his 
particular  territory,  and  actual  executive  authority 
over  it,  were  not  inclined  to  tolerate  in  the  imperial 
constitution  more  than  a  titular  or  strictly  limited 
precedence  and  representative  leadership  on  the  part 
of  the  emperor.  Wherever  there  were  ecclesiastical 
territorial  rights  held  by  bishops  or  archbishops,  the 
tendency  was  to  dissolve  them  or  to  make  them  sub- 
ordinate to  the  civil  principalities. 

Economically,  German  city  life  was  experiencing 
an  unusual  degree  of   prosperity;   trade  was  active, 


THE  PERIOD  OF  SEPARA  TION  AND  REFORM     197 

education  was  diffused  as  is  shown  by  the  enormous 
increase  of  printed  books,  by  the  popularity  of  book 
fairs,  by  the  attention  paid  to  the  development  of  art. 
Sources  of  social  unrest  were  also  present  in  the  class 
of  Imperial  Knights  who  were  heavily  indebted  to  the 
capitalistic  classes  of  the  towns,  and  lived  by  extortion 
and  violence.  Dangerous  in  its  possibilities,  too,  was 
the  discontent  of  the  peasants,  who  in  a  period  of 
rising  prices,  owing  to  the  discovery  of  the  great 
silver  mines  in  America,  felt  the  pressure  of  feudal 
dues,  and  were  bitterly  antagonistic  towards  the  great 
landed  estates  held  by  monastic  and  other  religious 
corporations;  they  did  not  hesitate,  too,  to  criticise 
the  clergy  themselves  for  their  idleness  and  their  fail- 
ure to  adhere  to  more  rigid  standards  of  life.  Every- 
where the  aspiration  for  religious  reform  was  asso- 
ciated with  the  expectation  of  social  revolution. 

Erasmus 

Probably  the  most  powerful  single  influence  on  ed- 
ucated opinion  in  Germany  at  this  time  was  the 
humanist  Erasmus  (born  near  Rotterdam  in  1466), 
who,  along  with  unique  gifts  in  scholarship,  was 
thoroughly  in  earnest  in  his  belief  that  all  learning 
should  be  used  as  the  means  and  basis  for  the  moral 
upbuilding  of  the  nation  and  the  individual.  Igno- 
rance he  took  to  be  the  chief  opponent  of  sincere 
Christianity,  because  without  it  one  could  not  properly 
appreciate  the  uncorrupted  sources  of  truth  in  the 
New  Testament  and  in  the  Fathers.      In    15 16   he 


198  MODERN  CHURCH  HISTORY 

published  the  first  edition  of  the  Greek  New  Testa- 
ment. He  was  indefatigable  as  a  writer  of  healthy, 
vigorous  Christian  pamphlets  intended  to  train  up  an 
ethically  alert  laity.  Of  the  institutionalism  of  the 
existing  mediaeval  Church  where  it  failed  to  effect  con- 
duct or  where  it  actually  prevented  sincere  religious 
convictions,  he  was  an  unsparing  critic  and  used  his 
ready  wit  and  his  wide  scholarship  to  make  it  ridicu- 
lous. His  satires  on  the  foibles  of  the  clergy  and  on 
the  obscurantism  of  the  monastic  orders  were  read  by 
all  classes,  not  excepting  those  against  whom  they 
were  directed.  As  a  dictator  in  literature  and  a  guide 
in  enlightened  morality,  thoroughly  Christian  in  tone, 
and  because  of  the  simplicity  of  its  dogmatic  ground- 
work, not  perplexing  in  its  method,  Erasmus  ad- 
dressed an  international  audience. 

Especially  was  he  popular  in  those  German  univer- 
sities, where  in  the  conflict  between  the  old  (scho- 
lastic) and  the  new  (humanistic)  learning  the  au- 
thority of  his  name  was  powerful  in  promoting  the 
systematic  study  of  the  ancient  languages.  Erasmus 
enjoyed  being  in  the  favor  of  the  great  and  powerful, 
whether  they  were  found  among  highly  placed  clerics 
or  in  princely  families.  In  these  friendships,  as  his 
correspondence  shows,  he  was  apt  to  be  undiscrimi- 
nating;  the  existing  social  order  was  the  medium  in 
which  he  preferred  to  work  and  he  had  all  the  horror 
of  Burke  at  the  idea  of  catastrophic  change  as  a  method 
of  reforming  the  abuses  he  was  lashing  with  his  satire. 
Under   Erasmus's   direction,   regulated  and   orderly 


THE  PERIOD  OF  SEPARA  TION  AND  REFORM     199 

progress  towards  the  attainment  of  his  religious  and 
ecclesiastical  ideals  through  a  church  organization  in 
the  hands  of  educated,  trained  and  broad-minded 
leaders,  seemed  to  his  friends  and  admirers  not 
beyond  the  bounds  of  reasonable  assurance.  If  the 
responsible  classes  could  be  educated,  then  trans- 
formation would  spell  reformation. 

Luther 

Such  was  the  atmosphere  of  optimism  that  was 
roughly  dissipated  when  Martin  Luther  came  into 
public  notice  by  his  attacks  on  papal  indulgences 
through  the  publication  of  his  famous  ninety-five 
theses  at  the  University  of  Wittenberg.  Born  in 
1483  of  a  sturdy  peasant  stock,  Luther,  after  studying 
at  Erfurt,  entered  the  Augustinian  order,  but  the 
strictest  monastic  discipline  failed  to  satisfy  his 
religious  needs.  After  much  trying  self-analysis, 
tested  as  it  was  by  study  of  the  New  Testament  and 
of  St.  Augustine,  he  became  convinced  that  the  key- 
stone of  religion  was  faith.  Nothing  else  counted; 
man  by  himself  and  in  himself  could  only  produce 
evil.  The  preaching  of  the  indulgence  system  by  the 
Dominican  Tetzel,  who  with  others  was  commis- 
sioned to  procure  funds  for  the  rebuilding  of  St. 
Peter's,  stirred  Luther  to  state  his  convictions  as  to 
the  real  conditions  of  God's  forgiveness.  This  he 
did  in  full  detail ;  no  place  was  left  for  papal  action  in 
the  relation  of  the  soul  to  God  except  a  bare  decla- 
ration,   officially   made,    that   every   true   Christian, 


200  MODERN  CHURCH  HISTORY 

without  the  formal  certificate  of  indulgence  had  an 
actual  share,  whether  in  life  or  in  death,  of  the  merits 
bestowed  by  Christ  upon  the  whole  community  of  the 
faithful.  A  lengthy  controversy  followed  in  which 
Luther  elaborated  his  points  and  transmitted  his 
argument  to  Rome.  The  dispute  became  more 
serious  when  Frederick  the  Wise  of  Saxony  inter- 
vened to  see  that  justice  was  done  to  the  Wittenberg 
monk.  Luther  agreed  to  keep  silence  if  his  enemies 
abstained  form  attacking  him,  a  condition  which  was 
far  from  being  scrupulously  maintained  at  Rome. 

Leo  X  was  chiefly  concerned  in  persuading  Freder- 
ick to  withdraw  from  Luther  his  protection,  for  Julius 
IFs  plan  to  secure  funds  for  the  rebuilding  of  St. 
Peter's  by  the  sale  of  indulgences  had  been  extended 
in  15 14  by  Leo  to  Germany.  Apart  from  the  formal 
dispensation  from  temporal  and  purgatorial  penalties, 
the  indulgence  was  accompanied  by  a  "confessionale", 
i.e.,  a  document  which  authorized  the  holder  to  secure 
from  any  priest,  after  confession,  one  formal  and 
complete  absolution  if  he  were  in  good  health,  and 
gave  the  same  right  if  at  any  time  the  individual 
holding  it  were  in  peril  of  death.  These  privileges 
could  be  secured  by  visiting  seven  churches,  by 
making  prescribed  prayers  at  each  visit,  with  the 
additional  condition  that  a  sum  of  money  be  paid 
which  might  be  increased  if  the  two  first  conditions 
were  not  complied  with.  The  financial  side  of  the 
transaction  was  emphasized  to  a  deplorable  degree  and 
it  can  easily  be  seen  that  to  the  popular  mind  it  meant 


THE  PERIOD  OF  SEPARA  TION  AND  REFORM    201 

that  moral  laxity  might  be  atoned  for  by  money  pay- 
ments. The  "confessionale"  was  not  the  least  evil 
part  of  the  system;  for  it  practically  did  away  with 
the  ordinary  discipline  which  the  parish  priest  exerted 
over  his  congregation  as  their  regular  confessor. 
Its  terms,  too,  might  to  the  ordinary  intelligence  not 
trained  in  the  subtle  distinctions  of  scholastic  the- 
ology be  interpreted  as  a  formal  licence,  with  the 
Church's  approval,  to  live  a  life  of  sin  up  to  the  hour 
of  death.  If  the  indulgences  could  have  been  dis- 
tributed automatically,  they  would  probably  have 
done  less  harm.  The  popular  religious  teaching  re- 
ceived from  the  sellers  of  indulgences,  who  by  their 
eloquence  had  to  make  a  market  for  their  wares, 
could  under  no  conditions  have  been  edifying. 

Economic  objections  to  the  sale  of  indulgences  un- 
doubtedly played  a  part  in  swelling  the  opposition  to 
them,  especially  where  the  government  felt  the  diffi- 
culties due  to  the  great  drain  of  the  precious  metals 
carried  across  the  Alps  in  the  coffers  of  the  indulgence 
agents.  But  Luther's  protest  against  indulgences  was 
that  of  a  practical  pastor.  Though  he  was  a  univer- 
sity professor,  lecturing  on  biblical  subjects,  his  own 
training  as  a  monk  had  kept  him  in  touch  with  popular 
feeling,  and  besides  from  15 15  on  he  had  acted  as 
substitute  in  the  parish  church  of  Wittenberg  in  place 
of  the  regular  parish  priest  who  was  incapacitated  by 
illness.  He  saw  the  actual  evils  of  the  indulgence 
campaign,  and  knew,  too,  that  many  German  princes 
had  forbidden  the  indulgence  preachers  access  to  their 


202  MODERN  CHURCH  HIS  TOR  V 

territories.  More  than  once  in  his  sermons  during 
the  two  years  of  his  pastoral  work  he  had  warned  his 
people  against  the  sale,  and  explained  his  own  views. 
These  warnings  were  all  the  more  needed  because 
the  most  active  of  all  the  indulgence  preachers,  Tetzel, 
was  conducting  his  campaign  not  far  from  Witten- 
berg. To  bring  his  opposition  to  a  head  and  also  to 
secure  sympathetic  and  powerful  allies,  Luther  drew 
up  his  nintey-five  theses,  which  he  nailed  to  the  doors 
of  the  church  at  Wittenberg,  October  31st,  15 17.  In 
these  he  merely  repeated  the  position  he  had  already 
taken  that  the  forgiveness  of  sin  was  not  a  chain  of 
successive  accidental  acts  procured  from  the  outside, 
but  a  transformation  of  self-centred  human  nature 
by  a  process  of  continuous  faith,  penitence,  self- 
denial  and  sanctification  into  a  God-centred  nature. 
The  only  new  point  added  by  him  in  the  theses  was 
a  development  of  his  position  on  the  purgatorial 
aspect  of  the  indulgence  doctrine. 

The  publication  of  the  theses  called  forth  many  re- 
plies; naturally  Tetzel  entered  the  conflict.  But  more 
important  was  the  fact  that  a  curial  official,  Silvestro 
Mazolini  di  Prierio,  came  out  as  the  champion  of  the 
indulgence  system  and  attacked  Luther  as  disloyal  to 
the  authority  of  the  papacy.  The  same  line  was 
taken  by  Dr.  Eck  of  Ingoldstadt,  one  of  the  best  known 
of  German  theologians.  Luther  was  not  slow  to  de- 
fend himself  and  fully  accepted  in  various  writings 
the  conclusions  to  be  drawn  from  his  theses  as  to 
papal  authority.     He  was  willing,  he  said,  to  respect 


THE  PERIOD  OF  SEP  A  RA  TION  A  ND  REFORM    203 

the  pope  as  the  disciplinary  executive  of  the  Church, 
but  not  as  the  personal  repository  of  its  teaching. 
In  1 518  he  had  gone  so  far  as  to  accept  as  his  one 
infallible  guide  only  the  Scriptures  themselves. 
The  matter  was  now  taken  out  of  the  sphere  of  theo- 
logical controversialists  and  brought  within  the  pro- 
vince of  the  legal  machinery  of  the  Church,  when  a 
papal  officer,  Mario  Perusco,  brought  charges  formally 
against  Luther  as  an  heretical  suspect.  The  com- 
mission appointed  to  investigate  the  charge  included 
among  others  di  Prierio,  who  had  written  against 
Luther  An  interval  of  sixty  days  was  given  him 
within  which  he  was  to  appear  at  Rome  (August  7, 
1 5 18).  As,  however,  he  still  continued  to  write  in 
defense  of  his  position.  Cardinal  Cajetan,  who  was  to 
be  papal  legate  at  the  diet  of  Augsburg,  was  com^- 
missioned  to  arrest  Luther  and  have  hirn  dispatched 
to  Rome. 

Neither  the  emperor  nor  Luther's  immediate  sover- 
eign, Frederick  of  Saxony,  were  willing  to  hand  him 
over  to  papal  agents  to  have  the  trial  held  outside  of 
Germany,  or  allow  anyone  but  a  German  bishop  to 
preside  over  the  trial.  Luther  was  allowed,  however, 
to  appear  before  Cajetan  at  Augsburg  for  a  pre- 
liminary hearing.  Here,  when  it  was  called  to 
Luther's  attention  that  his  theses  were  contrary  to  a 
bull  of  Clement  VI  and  that  he  had  stated  that  faith 
was  a  prerequisite  for  the  reception  of  the  sacrament, 
he  was  asked  to  withdraw  both  the  theses  and  his 
supplementary  declarations.     Luther  refused  to  ac- 


204  MODERN  CHURCH  HISTOR  Y 

knowledge  the  teaching,  "magisterium",  of  the  pope, 
and  in  a  notorially  executed  document  on  the  i6th  of 
October  appealed  from  the  pope  *' badly  informed  to 
the  pope  better  informed";  i.e.  he  asked  for  an  in- 
vestigation at  the  Curia  **de  novo"  under  the  charge 
of  men  who  had  not  taken  sides  already  against  him, 
and  also  for  a  trial  in  German  territory.  Fearing  a 
possible  seizure  by  Cajetan's  agents,  Luther  escaped 
from  Augsburg,  and  in  November,  when  back  at 
Wittenberg,  appealed  to  a  General  Council.  Later  at- 
tempts made  by  the  Curia  either  to  prevent  Frederick 
from  giving  protection  to  Luther,  or  to  secure  con- 
cessions from  Luther  himself,  failed.  All  that  could 
be  extracted  from  him  was  a  promise  to  keep  silence 
if  those  who  opposed  his  teaching  would  do  the  same. 
It  was  soon  known  that  Leo  had  in  November 
proclaimed  the  indulgence  teaching  which  Luther 
attacked  to  be  the  authoritative  teachingof  the  Church. 
In  15 19  no  thought  was  given  by  either  side  to 
Luther's  proposal  that  the  subject  should  be  dropped. 
Dr.  Eck  propounded  various  theses  and  contended  that 
the  issue  involved  the  acceptance  of  papal  autocracy, 
to  which,  of  course,  Luther  was  glad  to  reply  on  his- 
torical grounds,  though  he  still  accepted  communion 
with  the  Roman  See  as  an  obligation  of  practical 
necessity.  This  was  simply  his  old  line  of  argument 
on  the  disciplinary  rights  of  the  central  executive 
of  the  Church.  At  a  public  disputation  at  Leipzig, 
Eck  was  able  to  force  Luther  to  allow  that  the  Huss- 
ites  condemned    by  the   decree   of   Constance   were 


THE  PERIOD  OF  SEPARA  TION  AND  REFORM     205 

good  Christians  and  orthodox.  All  the  institutions  of 
the  Church, — its  creeds,  theology,  worship,  and  hier- 
archy,—he  said,  were  subordinate  to  the  Gospel,  under 
which  term  he  meant  the  message  of  divine  grace 
that  comes  completely  to  the  human  soul  through  the 
revelation  in  and  by  Christ.  All  ministerial  acts  have 
therefore,  he  stated,  spiritual  validity  only  as  they  are 
representative  of  a  community  made  up  of  indi- 
viduals who  have  absorbed  the  Gospel  of  grace.  The 
official  Church  with  all  its  institutions  must  be  ac- 
cepted, not  as  a  finality,  but  as  the  organ  of  divine 
discipline  and  education. 

Luther's  courage  and  steadfastness,  his  interest  in 
improving  the  educational  curriculum  at  Wittenberg, 
and  also  the  enemies  he  had  made  in  the  Curialist 
party  at  home  and  abroad,  now  brought  to  his  side  a 
host  of  humanist  sympathizers.  Artists  such  as 
Diirer,  laymen  of  cultivation  like  Pirckheimer,  clergy 
and  bishops,  as  well  as  the  university  adherents  of 
the  New  Learning,  were  glad  to  find  in  him  a  new 
champion  of  their  cause.  Hutten,  a  vigorous  defender 
of  the  rights  of  German  nationalism  against  the 
existing  machinery  of  papal  control,  also  began  to 
realize  the  aid  he  would  secure  from  Luther's  cam- 
paign. Under  the  combination  of  these  influences, 
and  especially  after  reading  Hutten's  edition  of 
Laurentius  Valla's  investigation  of  the  Constantine 
Donation,  Luther  became  convinced  that  his  moder- 
ate, restrained  attitude  towards  the  papacy  could  no 
longer  be  held.     He  came  to  share  Hutten's  nation- 


206  MODERN  CHURCH  HISTORY 

alistic  detestation  of  curial  government  and  soon  re- 
vived with  tremendous  power  in  his  address  to  the 
Christiaji  Nobility  of  the  German  Nation  the  anti- 
papal  polemic  that,  as  we  have  seen,  goes  back  in  the 
Middle  Ages  to  the  time  of  Joachim  di  Fiore.  It  was 
this  address  that  proclaimed  the  duty  of  the  German 
emperor  and  princes  to  drive  out  curial  oppression,  by- 
force  if  necessary,  and  to  proceed  on  an  independent 
basis  to  reform  the  Church.  It  made  the  centre  of  the 
new  system  the  parish  from  whence  should  radiate 
newly  originated  communities,  with  better  education, 
improved  methods  of  poor  relief,  which  would  know 
nothing  of  the  old  traditions,  practices  and  institu- 
tions of  mediaeval  churchmanship.  Fasts,  pilgrim- 
ages, monasticism,  clerical  celibacy,  excommunication 
and  interdict,  all  were  to  go,  and  the  papacy  itself  as  a 
juristic  organism  was  to  disappear  and  be  remodelled 
along  such  lines  as  would  confer  upon  it  purely  eth- 
ical leadership.  Questions  of  organization  on  a  large 
scale  had  little  interest  for  Luther,  and  he  spoke  of 
the  reorganization  of  the  Church  in  Germany  as  if  it 
little  mattered  after  all  whether  the  episcopate  was 
preserved  or  not.  It  might  stay,  but  if  it  resisted  the 
proposed  transformation  it  could  easily  be  dropped 
without  hurt. 

Shortly  after  this  national  trumpet-call  to  all  classes 
in  Germany  to  oppose  the  Curia,  Luther  issued  an- 
other pamphlet  entitled  the  Babylonian  Captivity,  in 
which  he  developed  his  theory  of  the  Sacraments  in 
harmony  with  his  doctrine  of  the  all-sufficiency  of 


THE  PERIOD  OF  SEP  A  RA  TION  A  ND  REFORM    207 

faith.  Three  were  to  be  retained, — Baptism,  the 
Lord's  Supper,  and  Penance,— but  of  course  all  three 
were  interpreted  in  the  light  of  Luther's  own 
teaching  as  already  given  above.  Next  came  a 
pamphlet  on  the  Freedom  of  a  Christian  Man^  written 
with  less  polemical  spirit,  and  meant  by  its  clear 
devotional  language  to  impress  upon  the  popular  mind 
the  constructive  side  of  Luther's  position. 

Leo,  being  occupied  in  getting  all  the  political 
benefit  he  could  for  the  Pontifical  State  and  for  his 
family  from  the  rivalry  between  Spain  and  France, 
was  much  worried  in  speculating  on  the  problem  as  to 
which  of  these  two  powers  would  be  most  profitable 
as  an  ally,  and  therefore  gave  little  attention  to  the 
excitement  in  Germany,  which  he  regarded  as  a  petty 
squabble  between  monastic  orders.  Luther's  trial 
dragged  on  and  it  was  only  Dr.  Eck's  presence  in 
Rome  in  1520  that  caused  more  expedition  to  be  used. 
Finally,  in  June  of  this  year,  forty-one  propositions 
extracted  or  deduced  from  Luther's  writings  were 
pronounced  heretical,  his  books  were  forbidden  and 
ordered  to  be  burned  and  their  author  was  given  sixty 
days  to  recant,  under  penalty  of  being  declared  an 
open  heretic,  with  the  additional  provision  that  the 
civil  and  ecclesiastical  authorities  should  deliver  him 
up  to  be  taken  to  Rome,  and  that  any  place  harboring 
him  should  be  placed  under  an  interdict.  Eck  and 
Aleander,  the  papal  librarian,  were  entrusted  with 
the  publication  of  the  bull  in  Germany.  The  method 
followed  was  most  questionable  because  Eck,  in  order 


208  MODERN  CHURCH  HISTORY 

to  wreak  his  personal  spite  on  numbers  of  his  op- 
ponents among  the  German  Humanists,  had  intro- 
duced into  the  body  of  the  document  the  names  of 
Hutten,  Pirckheimer  and  others  of  the  same  group. 
Many  bishops  paid  no  attention  to  the  papal  docu- 
ment, and  neither  Frederick  of  Saxony  nor  the  Uni- 
versity of  Wittenberg  recognized  its  existence. 
Luther  himself  dramatically  burnt  the  bull  in  Wit- 
tenberg on  the  loth  of  December,  1520,  after  the 
order  for  the  burning  of  his  books  had  been  carried 
out  in  a  few  places. 

Though  sure  of  local  support,  the  situation  of 
Luther  was  perilous  because  the  attitude  of  the  young 
emperor  Charles  V,  now  but  twenty  years  old,  was 
uncertain.  According  to  mediaeval  canon  law  the 
secular  power  was  bound  to  carry  out  the  provisions 
of  the  pope's  bull;  i.e.  Luther's  books  must  be  burnt 
and  he  and  his  supporters  must  be  delivered  to  Rome. 
When  the  excommunication  ensued  the  persons 
named  became  civil  outlaws  and  they  must  be  so 
treated  by  the  state  officers.  Charles  was  known  to 
sympathize  with  Humanism,  and  much  hope  was 
based  on  this  sympathy.  It  was  forgotten  that  the 
emperor  was  not  only  not  a  German  but  that  German 
nationalism  was  distasteful  to  him  because  it  violated 
the  principles  of  absolutism  on  which  had  been  built 
up  the  power  of  his  family  in  Spain.  Charles  also 
would  be  the  last  one  to  encourage  a  radical  break 
with  the  Church,  since  the  mainstay  of  his  control 
over  both  Spain  and  southern  Italy  were  the  clergy. 


THE  PERIOD  OF  SEPARA  TION  AND  REFORM     209 

Both  by  policy  and  by  temperament  the  emperor 
might  be  counted  upon  to  side  with  the  ecclesi- 
astical authorities.  Yet  he  had  no  intention  of 
yielding  himself  up  as  the  blind  instrument  of 
Leo's  will,  especially  as  he  knew  the  pope  was 
now  inclining  towards  a  pro-French  policy  in  Ital- 
ian politics. 

When  the  papal  legate  demanded  that  the  emperor 
should  put  into  execution  the  terms  of  the  bull, 
Charles  refused  and  took  the  middle  course  of  citing 
Luther  to  appear  before  the  great  representative  body 
of  Germany,  the  Diet,  which  met  this  year  (1521)  at 
Worms.  Luther  appeared  and  refused  to  retract  any 
of  his  doctrines  except  on  the  authority  of  the  Scrip- 
tures. As  to  his  famous  declaration  at  the  close  of 
his  speech  to  the  Diet,  the  only  authenticated  words 
are  "God  help  me.  Amen."  Not  long  after  this  he 
was  placed  under  the  ban  of  the  Empire,  which  meant 
that  he  was  now  an  outlaw.  According  to  the  terms 
of  the  safe  conduct  under  which  he  had  made  the 
trip  to  Worms,  he  was  to  return  home  in  the  charge 
of  an  imperial  herald.  On  his  way  back  he  was 
spirited  away  by  the  agents  of  the  Elector  of  Saxony 
and  disappeared  from  public  ken.  This  was  the 
period  he  passed  at  the  Wartburg,  his  patron's  castle, 
a  time  of  retirement  which  lasted  nearly  a  year,  spent 
in  the  preparation  of  a  fresh  translation  into  German 
of  the  New  Testament.  His  work  really  amounted 
to  the  creation  of  a  classic,  for  Luther  selected  as  his 
medium  an  existing  common  form  of  written  speech 
15 


210  MODERN  CHURCH  HISTORY 

which,  moulded  by  his  genius,  became  a  general 
standard  everywhere. 

The  Lutheran  movement  was  not  arrested  by  its 
leader's  retirement.  His  disciples  were  especially 
strong  in  the  Imperial  Cities;  as  yet  the  great  terri- 
torial princes  were  watching.  Their  attitude  was 
well  expressed  at  the  Diet  of  Niirnberg  when  it  was 
decided  to  adjourn  the  execution  of  the  Edict  of 
Worms  until  a  General  Council  had  examined  the 
Lutheran  case.  A  war  with  France  was  absorbing 
the  attention  of  Charles  V,  and  during  his  brother 
Ferdinand's  regency  in  Germany  the  religious  prob- 
lem was  shelved.  Neither  were  the  German  princes 
willing  to  strengthen  the  emperor's  hands.  Hadrian 
VI,  the  new  pope,  despite  his  desire  to  rid  the 
Church  of  abuses,  was  intolerant  of  the  movement  in 
Germany.  So  the  breach  between  the  two  sides  in- 
creased more  and  more.  Popular  agitators  and  re- 
ligious enthusiasts  began  to  see  in  the  movement  a 
chance  for  social  revolution  or  radical  change.  At 
Wittenberg  itself  Karlstadt,  one  of  Luther's  fol- 
lowers, demanded  that  the  monasteries  be  suppressed 
and  was  encouraging  the  populace  to  pillage  the 
churches.  In  other  places  exalted  visionaries  clam- 
ored for  the  suppression  of  infant  baptism,  while 
they  attacked  universities  and  depreciated  the  value 
of  all  human  science. 

The  situation  was  felt  to  be  so  dangerous  that 
Luther  returned  to  Wittenberg  to  take  charge  of  the 
reforming  movement,  for  he  saw  with  his  keen  com- 


THE  PERIOD  OF  SEPARA  TION  AND  REFORM    21 


mon  sense  that  the  success  of  the  radical  element 
would  deprive  him  of  the  backing  of  the  civil  authori- 
ties, his  one  great  bulwark  materially  against  the  Ro- 
man Curia.  While  the  radicals  represented  by  Karl- 
stadt  and  Miinzer  parted  company  with  Luther,  many 
of  the  Humanists,  including  Erasmus  himself,  in  their 
alarm  at  the  prospect  of  social  revolution,  also  broke 
with  him.  The  chance  for  a  peaceful  solution  disap- 
peared when  the  Imperial  Knights  attacked  the  terri- 
tory of  the  ecclesiastical  Elector  of  Trier,  but  the 
cities  refused  to  join  them,  and  Ulrich  von  Hutten's 
hopes  of  overturning  the  traditional  constitution  of  the 
Empire  were  blighted.  Soon  afterwards,  stirred  to  the 
breaking  point  by  social  grievances,  the  peasants  in 
many  parts  of  Germany  initiated  a  vast  and  violent 
movement  against  the  landlords.  Along  with  their 
demands  for  agrarian  reform  there  were  religious 
items  in  their  platform  obviously  suggested  by 
Luther's  teaching. 

Luther  himself  refused  to  be  drawn  either  to  take 
sides  with  the  Knights  or  to  encourage  the  Peasant 
Revolt  and  even  declined  to  urge  milder  methods  than 
those  used  in  the  ruthless  repression  which  followed. 
By  strictly  avoiding  the  paths  which  might  make  him 
appear  the  champion  of  revolution,  Luther  attached 
to  his  side  two  of  the  ablest  of  the  German  princes, 
John  of  Saxony  and  Philip  of  Hesse,  both  of  whom 
found  in  the  new  teaching  a  rallying  point  against 
imperial  aggressions.  The  decree  of  Worms  was  now 
a  dead  letter,  for  the  emperor  was  having  trouble  in 


2 1 2  MODERN  CHURCH  HIS  TOR  V 

Italy,  where  those  who  rejected  his  authority  were 
being  encouraged  to  revolt  by  the  new  pope,  Clement 
VII  ( 1 523-1 534).  While  the  movement  was  spread- 
ing, the  definite  lines  of  the  Lutheran  reform  were 
being  made  clear:  the  closing  of  the  monasteries, 
the  emphasis  on  preaching,  the  secularization  of 
church  property  and  the  disappearance  of  the  episco- 
pate. As  to  public  worship,  the  custom  was  to  keep 
the  service  of  the  Mass,  but  with  the  omission  of 
the  Canon;  no  objection  was  felt  to  the  word  itself 
which  was  retained.  After  Luther's  experience  with 
the  Peasant  Revolt  and  the  rise  of  Anabaptism  an 
alliance  with  the  state  authorities  was  affected,  per- 
manent in  character  and  effective  in  method,  which 
left  a  conservative  stamp  on  Lutheranism. 

Partly  because  of  the  emperor's  unfriendliness  to 
Clement  VII  and  partly  because  of  the  situation  of 
international  politics,  the  exact  attitude  of  the  Ger- 
man imperial  system  to  the  new  revolution  was  not 
defined  until  the  Diet  of  Speyer  (1529),  when  it  was 
made  plain  that  those  states  which  had  carried  out 
the  Edict  of  Worms  could  continue  to  do  so,  while 
all  other  states  were  to  be  prohibited  form  making 
further  changes  until  the  calling  of  a  General  Council ; 
the  Mass  was  allowed  everywhere  according  to  the 
old  rite.  These  directions  were  opposed  by  fourteen 
Imperial  Cities,  and  five  secular  princes  and  their  pre- 
sentation of  a  formal  protest  gave  rise  to  the  word 
**protestant"  as  a  current  and  convenient  label  for 
this    group.     In    order    to    make   their    opposition 


THE  PERIOD  OF  SEPARA  TION  AND  REFORM    213 

effective,  Philip  of  Hesse  attempted  to  unite  the  re- 
forming parties  of  both  Germany  and  Switzerland,  a 
project  which  was  shattered  because  of  the  existence 
of  divergent  views  on  the  subject  of  the  Eucharist. 
At  Augsburg,  when  it  was  seen  that  the  Lutherans 
were  inflexibly  opposed  to  proceeding  along  the  lines 
of  Swiss  reform,  efforts  were  made — after  Melancthon, 
Luther's  expert  theologian  and  a  Humanist,  had  pre- 
pared a  moderate  statement  of  the  Lutheran  position 
(Augsburg  Confession) — to  discover  a  modus  vivendi 
between  the  adherents  of  Luther  and  those  who  re- 
tained communion  with  Rome  (1530). 

Luther,  however,  used  his  powerful  influence  against 
any  compromise.  "I  am  opposed",  he  said  at  the 
outset,  **to  make  the  two  doctrines  agree;  for  the 
thing  is  impossible  except  on  condition  that  the  pope 
abolish  the  papacy."  The  situation  was  complicated 
by  the  fact  that  some  of  the  cities  represented  at  the 
Diet  had  prepared  a  statement  accepting  the  Swiss 
tenets.  On  the  19th  of  November,  1530,  an  imperial 
edict  was  issued  ordering  the  rigid  application  of  the 
Edict  of  Worms,  directing  the  reestablishment  every- 
where of  episcopal  jurisdiction  and  providing  for  the 
restoration  of  all  confiscated  ecclesiastical  property 
to  its  original  owners.  A  strong  league  was  formed 
to  resist  the  application  of  these  measures — the  so- 
called  league  of  Schmalkald,  which  was  joined  by 
various  states  that  had  no  sympathy  with  Reform,  but 
which  were  alarmed  by  the  possible  extension  of 
absolutism  in  the  hands  of  the  emperor.     Charles  V, 


214  MODERN  CHURCH  HISTORY 

bowing  to  necessity,  came  to  terms  with  the  Protes- 
tant princes  and  agreed  to  leave  things  as  they  were. 
The  project  of  a  General  Council  was  debated  but 
no  effective  steps  were  taken  by  Charles  to  call  it 
when  he  visited  Clement  VII  at  Bologna  (1532-33). 

In  the  meantime  the  wave  of  reform  was  gaining 
strength,  though  in  Westphalia  much  discredit  came 
to  the  reformers  through  the  excesses  practised  there 
by  the  radical  Anabaptists  under  John  of  Leyden,  who 
attempted  to  realize  a  terrestrial  millenium  at  Miin- 
ster.  Yet  hope  had  not  been  abandoned  that  the 
religious  divisions  might  be  healed;  this  was  all  the 
more  necessary  because  of  the  constant  danger  from 
the  Turks  on  the  eastern  frontier.  Many  joint  dis- 
cussions were  arranged  for  and  in  some  points  agree- 
ment was  reached,  but  Luther  himself  never  en- 
couraged reunion,  although  on  more  than  one 
occasion  he  spoke  in  most  moderate  terms  of  his 
former  associates.  His  influence  was  still  predomi- 
nant, although  his  decision  to  allow  Philip  of  Hesse 
to  practise  bigamy  exposed  him  to  much  natural 
criticism,  more  especially  as  Philip  became  lukewarm 
in  supporting  the  reforming  cause.  In  the  midst  of 
this  confused  situation  Luther  died  (1546). 

Soon  after  a  war  broke  out  in  which  some  of  the 
Protestant  princes  supported  the  imperial  side,  and 
the  struggle  proved  disastrous  to  the  Protestant 
party.  In  1548,  in  expectation  of  the  fulfilment  of 
the  promise  made  by  the  Protestants  that  they  would 
take  part  in  a  General  Council,  an  "interim"  arrange- 


THE  PERIOD  OF SEPARA  TION  AND  REFORM    215 

ment  was  made  by  which  the  old  worship  was  re- 
stored while  clerical  marriage  and  the  administration 
of  the  chalice  were  permitted.  The  objection  against 
this  compromise  was  general;  therefore  no  perma- 
nent settlement  was  secured.  Separation  had  already 
gone  too  far,  and  the  claims  of  partisanship  were  now 
accepted  as  the  correct  standard  of  religious  al- 
legiance. The  terms  of  the  Interim  were  suspected 
of  being  merely  an  underhand  plan  to  reintroduce  by 
degrees  the  whole  of  the  traditional  papal  system. 
Where  the  imperial  edict  was  observed  the  Lutheran 
clergy  preferred  persecution  or  exile  rather  than 
submit. 

The  political  situation,  also,  soon  destroyed  all  hope 
of  reestablishing  religious  peace  after  the  announce- 
ment of  Charles  V's  purpose  to  have  his  son  Philip  II, 
a  morose  and  bigoted  Spaniard,  succeed  him  as  Ger- 
man emperor.  The  princes  detested  the  project,  and 
the  most  direct  way  of  showing  their  detestation  was 
to  block  the  emperor's  plans,  both  political  and  re- 
ligious. Maurice  of  Saxony  suddenly  appeared  as 
the  leader  of  the  disaffected  states,  and  Charles,  who 
was  at  this  crisis  not  even  supported  by  the  German 
Roman  Catholics,  was  obliged  to  consent  to  the  peace 
of  Augsburg  (1555),  by  which  Germany  was  divided 
into  two  authorized  religious  groups, —  i.e.  states 
which  were  to  accept  the  Lutheran  Confession  of 
Faith,  while  others  adhered  to  the  Roman  Com- 
munion. The  subject  was  bound  to  follow  the  re- 
ligious profession  of  the  lord  of  the  territory  where 


216  MODERN  CHURCH  HISTORY 

he  lived;  those  who  objected  had  the  choice  of  exile. 
The  treaty  forbade  further  propaganda  of  reform,  a 
clause  which  naturally  displeased  the  Protestants, 
who  were  further  annoyed  by  another  provision  by 
which  any  bishop  who  embraced  Protestantism  was 
obliged  to  abandon  all  claims  over  the  property  of 
his  see. 

ZWINGLI 

Contemporary  with  the  Lutheran  movement,  there 
arose  in  the  Swiss  Cantons,  an  independent  anti-papal 
revolt  in  which,  just  as  in  Germany,  the  lines  of  re- 
form are  inextricably  mingled  with  the  demand  for 
national  autonomy.  The  oligarchical  leaders  in 
Switzerland  who  were  exploiting  their  country  by 
making  degrading  alliances  with  the  more  powerful 
European  states  found  themselves  confronted  by  a 
patriotic  uprising,  in  which  the  religious  element 
supplied  a  strong  stimulus  to  common  action.  The 
champion  of  the  new  movement  was  Zwingli,  a  Swiss 
of  Zurich,  born  in  1484,  who  after  careful  humanistic 
training  became  in  15 18,  on  account  of  his  recognized 
oratorical  power,  city  preacher  in  the  parish  church 
of  Zurich.  His  enthusiastic  appeals  in  behalf  of 
cultivating  a  self-respecting  and  devoted  patriotism, 
by  which  his  fellow  countrymen  would  be  inspired  to 
give  up  the  practice  of  serving  as  mercenaries  of 
foreign  powers,  introduced  his  preaching  of  religious 
reform.  Foreign  service,  he  told  his  hearers,  only 
encouraged  ambition  and   luxury;   the  sole  fruits  it 


THE  PERIOD  OF  SEPARA  TION  AND  REFORM    217 

produced  were  bad  ones;  "revolt  against  lawful  au- 
thoritiy,  evil  habits  and  the  pauperization  of  the 
masses." 

Shortly  after  Zwingli  took  this  firm  stand  there 
appeared  in  Zurich  an  Italian  monk,  busied  with  the 
sale  of  indulgences.  The  coincidence  was  not  for- 
tuitous; this  evil  practice  in  the  eyes  of  a  preacher 
of  nationalism  was  only  another  sign  of  the  apathetic 
attitude  of  his  countrymen  in  submiting  to  foreign 
intervention.  Zwingli,  now  taking  up  the  anti-papal 
campaign  with  fervor,  attacked  the  custom  of  fast- 
ing the  use  of  images,  and  the  mediaeval  doctrine  of 
the  Eucharist.  He  was  eagerly  listened  to  and  his 
words  produced  an  outbreak  of  popular  iconoclasm. 
Zurich's  example  was  followed  elsewhere,  especially 
in  the  cities.  By  1528  more  than  half  of  Switzerland 
had  accepted  the  new  order.  Seven  cantons,  the 
agricultural  ones,  remained  faithful  to  the  old  re- 
ligion. 

Zwingli's  success  in  other  Swiss  communities 
spurred  him  on  to  engage  in  a  campaign  of  propa- 
ganda in  the  conservatively  minded  cantons.  One  of 
his  disciples  was  arrested,  brought  to  Schwyz  and 
there  burned  for  heresy  in  May,  1529.  The  result 
was  the  outbreak  of  a  civil  war.  Both  sides  appealed 
to  outside  alliances  —  the  Roman  Catholics  sought 
the  aid  of  Austria  and  the  dukes  of  Savoy  and 
Lorraine;  Zwingli  asked  the  people  of  Berne  to  help 
Zurich,  but  they  proved  reluctant  to  take  up  the  cause 
of  reform,  although  they  promised  to  side  with  the 


2 1 8  MODERN  CHURCH  HISTOR  Y 

people  of  Zurich  if  their  territory  were  attacked. 
Attempts  were  now  made  to  conciliate  the  opposing 
sides,  which  brought  about  the  treaty  of  Cappel 
(June,  1529).  Both  Reformers  and  Roman  Catholics, 
it  was  agreed,  should  not  be  required  to  abjure  their 
respective  faiths;  in  each  parish,  so  it  was  arranged, 
the  majority  should  decide.  Those  who  were  not 
satisfied  might  migrate  to  some  other  parish.  Each 
canton  was  to  settle  the  Confession  to  which  they 
should  adhere  and  there  was  to  be  no  toleration  of 
dissenters  on  either  side.  Zwingli  was  not  satisfied, 
for  he  wished  to  bring  Switzerland  into  the  main 
current  of  the  reforming  movement.  He  therefore 
entered  into  relation  with  the  German  Protestants, 
made  friends  with  Philip  of  Hesse  and  prepared  to 
act  in  harmony  with  Luther  after  the  second  Diet 
of  Speyer. 

In  order  to  facilitate  this  plan  of  common  action, 
Zwingli  proposed  to  discuss  with  the  German  re- 
forming leader  the  point  on  which  they  disagreed. 
An  interview  took  place  between  the  two  at  Marburg 
on  the  2nd  of  October,  1529,  which  showed  how  far 
the  two  men  stood  apart.  Zvvingli's  views  on  the 
Eucharist  were  looked  upon  by  Luther  as  purely 
rationalistic.  The  Swiss  reformer  denied  the  Real 
Presence,  and  held  that  the  Communion  was  no 
more  than  a  bare  commemoration  of  the  death  of 
Christ,  Efforts  to  effect  a  compromise  proved  fu- 
tile; Luther  appealed  to  the  text  of  Scripture  and 
refused  to  treat  Zwingli  as  a  friend  and  ally. 


THE  PERIOD  OF  SEPARA  TION  AND  REFORM    219 

On  his  return  to  Zurich,  Zwingli  set  to  work  to 
carry  out  his  projects  of  reform  in  a  high-handed 
manner  without  considering  either  the  political  tra- 
dition of  the  Swiss  cantons  or  the  religious  con- 
victions of  those  from  whom  he  differed.  He  made 
himself  responsible  for  a  scheme  by  which  the  re- 
forming cantons,  and  even  the  separate  communities 
in  Roman  Catholic  cantons  where  the  reformers  were 
in  a  majority,  would  secure  a  predominant  voice  in 
the  administration  of  the  government.  His  extreme 
programme  alienated,  therefore,  many  of  his  sup- 
porters; the  people  of  Bern  and  Basel  held  aloof,  while 
the  Roman  Catholic  cantons  prepared  to  defend  them- 
selves against  the  aggression  of  Zurich.  In  the  con- 
flict that  followed,  the  fellow  townsmen  of  Zwingli 
were  disastrously  defeated  at  Cappel  (i530»  and 
Zwingli  himself,  who  had  accompanied  the  army  as 
chaplain,  lost  his  life. 

Calvin 

The  further  progress  of  Swiss  religious  changes  is 
intimately  connected  after  the  death  of  Zwingli  with 
the  career  of  John  Calvin,  who,  because  of  the  result 
of  the  unfavorable  attitude  of  the  French  government 
to  the  teaching  of  the  Reformers,  found  in  Switzer- 
land a  favorable  opportunity  for  taking  up  the  work 
which  Zwingli  had  left  unfinished.  The  early  years 
of  preparation  for  the  subsequent  dominating  position 
of  this  remarkable  man  must  now  be  narrated.  John 
Calvin,  born  in  1509,  was  the  son  of  an  official  con- 


220  MODERN  CHURCH  HISTORY 

nected  with  the  French  see  of  Noyon.  He  was 
carefully  trained  for  a  legal  career  and  enjoyed  for 
a  time  the  income  of  two  ecclesiastical  benefices. 
Calvin  came  under  the  influence  of  reforming  teaching 
at  about  the  age  of  twenty-six  through  his  association 
with  Lefevre  d'Etaples,  who  translated  the  New 
Testament  into  French  and  afterwards,  because  of  his 
known  sympathies  with  the  German  reformers,  was 
obliged  to  take  refuge  in  Strassburg  to  escape  the 
persecution  initiated  by  the  doctors  of  the  Sorbonne 
against  those  who  were  promulgating  in  Farnce  the 
teachings  of  Luther.  Calvin  resigned  his  church 
emoluments,  was  imprisoned  as  an  heretical  suspect, 
and  after  being  released  took  refuge  at  Basel.  Here 
he  wrote  his  celebrated  work,  Christian  Lnsiitutiojis , 
and  summed  up  in  a  dedicatory  letter  to  Francis  I, 
the  king  of  France,  his  famous  apology  for  the  re- 
forming doctrine.  The  chief  points  of  his  resume 
were  the  exclusive  authority  of  the  Scriptures,  medi- 
ation solely  through  Jesus  Christ,  justification  by 
faith,  predestination  and  a  criticism  of  all  the  tra- 
ditional principles  of  public  worship. 

Returning  to  France  for  a  brief  period,  after 
spending  a  short  time  at  the  court  of  Ferrara  where 
he  found  support  from  the  favor  of  the  duchess, 
a  French  princess,  Calvin  took  up  his  residence  at 
Strassburg,  where  at  this  time  a  system  of  religious 
conciliation  was  being  effectively  carried  out.  Both 
Roman  Catholics  and  Protestants  were  tolerated,  and 
even  the  bishop  of  the  city  took  the  lead  in  securing 


THE  PERIOD  OF  SEPARA  TION  AND  REFORM     11\ 

for  those  who  adopted  the  Protestant  Confession  the 
admission  to  the  city  of  John  Sturm,  a  recognized 
champion  of  the  new  doctrine.  After  becoming 
acquainted  with  the  theological  point  of  view  of  the 
Strassburg  school,  Calvin  journeyed  toward  Neuchatel 
in  order  to  visit  a  relation  of  his  who  had  just  pub- 
lished a  complete  Bible  in  French.  From  here  he 
went  to  Geneva,  where  through  the  help  of  the  people 
of  Berne  the  citizens  had  succeeded  in  emancipat- 
ing themselves  from  episcopal  control  (1533).  By 
achieving  their  independence  they  gave  an  oppor- 
tunity for  the  entrance  among  them  of  the  new 
teaching  as  championed  by  William  Farel,  who  suc- 
ceeded in  inducing  the  magistrates  of  the  town  to 
give  up  the  celebration  of  the  Latin  Mass  (1530). 
Farel  regarded  the  advent  of  Calvin  as  a  providential 
event,  and  adjured  him  to  abandon  his  plan  of 
seeking  studious  retirement  for  a  life  of  active 
service  amid  favorable  surroundings.  The  invitation 
was  accepted,  and  soon  Calvin  found  himself  an 
accredited  theological  teacher.  He  was  then  asked 
to  draw  up  a  series  of  ecclesiastical  and  disciplinary 
measures  for  the  new  religious  community;  he  repre- 
sented the  Geneva  reformers  in  various  doctrinal  con- 
ferences, and  was  placed  in  charge  of  one  of  the  chief 
churches  of  Geneva.  Calvin  had  no  thought,  however, 
of  confining  himself  to  parochial  activities.  It  was 
not  a  case,  to  use  his  own  words,  of  "reposing  after  he 
had  preached."  He  desired  to  work  for  the  disci- 
plinary reform  of  the  whole  community,  an  object  not 


222  MODERN  CHURCH  HISTORY 

SO  difficult  of  attainment,  as  Geneva  was  now  an 
entirely  autonomous  community.  At  a  time  not  long 
before  Calvin's  appearance  the  city. was  a  frequented 
commercial  centre  and  the  goal  of  pleasure  seekers, 
who  came  to  enjoy  the  free  life  of  a  lax  and  kindly 
episcopal  ruler  in  a  place  where  the  atmosphere  was 
half  French  and  half  Italian.  Even  before  Calvin  set 
out  to  turn  the  town  into  an  object  lesson  of  "social 
perfection",  Farel  had  introduced  measures  restrict- 
ing dancing,  gambling,  drunkenness,  luxurious  display 
and  dress.  These  various  regulations  were  codified 
and  turned  into  a  religious  ** magna  charta"  to  be  im- 
posed upon  every  citizen.  Ignorance  could  not  be 
pled  as  extenuation  for  contravention  of  the  new  law, 
for  copies  of  the  code  were  distributed  in  every 
household.  Despite  some  protests,  the  communal 
council  formally  accepted  the  new  confession  of  faith 
(29th  July,  1537).  It  was  not  long,  however,  before  a 
reaction  set  in ;  new  elections  gave  the  moderate  party 
the  majority  in  the  year  after  Calvin's  initial  victory, 
with  the  result  that  both  the  reforming  champions 
were  banished  from  the  city. 

The  contest  of  the  political  factions  in  the  city, 
during  the  course  of  which  Calvin's  adversaries  were 
accused  of  sacrificing  their  municipal  independence 
in  their  desire  to  secure  an  alliance  with  Berne,  led  to 
the  return  to  power  of  the  reformers,  who  again  sum- 
moned Calvin  to  take  charge  of  the  religious  policy 
of  the  city  (September,  1541).  This  time,  in  order 
to  make  his  position  secure,  he  had  laid  down  as  the 


THE  PERIOD  OF  SEPARA  TION  AND  REFORM     111 

condition  of  his  return  the  organization  of  a  Con- 
sistory for  putting  his  system  of  discipline  into 
practice.  This  body  met  every  week  and  exercised 
inquisitorial  power  into  the  conduct  of  all  citizens. 
No  one  was  exempt;  old  women  were  penalized  for 
lighting  candles  or  saying  litanies;  young  men  who 
deserted  their  fiancees  were  punished,  and  merchants 
who  sold  their  grain  too  dear  were  summoned  before 
this  redoubtable  body.  Inexorable  as  the  system  was, 
and  complete  as  appears  Calvin's  control  of  the 
ecclesiastical  machinery,  he  was  not  infrequently, 
owing  to  the  democratic  spirit  of  Geneva,  perilously 
near  seeing  his  whole  structure  crumble  to  pieces. 

Many  refugees,  too,  came  to  Geneva  who  gave 
Calvin  trouble.  One,  Bolsec,  was  imprisoned  and 
banished  for  denying  Predestination;  another  much 
more  celebrated,  Michael  Servetus,  a  writer  given  to 
pantheistic  speculations,  was  put  to  death  under 
circumstances  which  closely  involved  Calvin  as  an 
accomplice  of  the  officials  of  the  Roman  Inquisition 
in  exposing  this  unfortunate  man  to  the  certain  issue 
of  a  heresy  trial  (1553).  This  action  was  not  allowed 
to  pass  without  much  criticism  from  the  great  Re- 
former's own  contemporaries  —  mostly  Protestant 
Humanists  who  appealed  against  him  to  the  princi- 
ples of  religious  toleration.  After  Servetus's  death, 
but  entirely  unconnected  with  it,  Calvin  found  it 
necessary  to  suppress  a  revolt  against  his  authority 
by  methods  which  show  the  dictatorial  tendencies  of 
his   rule.     Calvin's  doctrine   of   Predestination  was 


224  MODERN  CHURCH  HISTORY 

much  objected  to  by  his  neighbors  in  Berne;  orders 
were  issued  to  prevent  the  teaching  by  the  Bernese 
clergy  of  Calvinism,  and  his  books  were  directed  to 
be  burnt.  Fearful  of  the  influence  of  this  opposition 
in  his  own  city,  Calvin  took  steps  to  pack  the  Council 
of  Geneva  with  partisans  devoted  to  his  own  cause. 
Those  who  opposed  him  were  subjected  to  torture, 
some  were  exiled  and  two  were  executed  at  Geneva, 
one  of  them  being  subjected  to  this  etxreme  penalty 
*'for  having  spoken  evil  of  Predestination  and  of  the 
justice  which  was  done  to  Servetus"  (1555). 

Calvin's  victory  was  complete;  all  efforts  made  by 
the  government  of  Berne  to  secure  milder  treatment 
for  Calvin's  adversaries,  who  were  designated  ''Liber- 
tines", proved  unavailing.  From  this  time  the  inter- 
national position  of  the  great  dictator  was  secure. 
He  no  longer  belonged  exclusively  to  Geneva;  his 
advice  was  asked  for  and  followed  in  other  countries 
by  men  who  looked  up  to  him  as  having  the  final  word 
to  say  wherever  the  agitation  for  the  reforming  doc- 
trines was  being  actively  pressed.  The  leadership 
in  this  work  of  propaganda  had  passed  definitely  to 
Calvin;  even  in  Germany  Calvinism  won  conquests 
hitherto  not  achieved  by  Luther's  followers.  With 
indefatigable  energy  he  continued  on,  in  spite  of  in- 
feebled  health,  the  task  to  which  he  had  devoted 
himself.  At  the  date  of  his  death,  which  took  place 
May  27,  1564,  the  foundation  had  been  firmly  laid  for 
those  various  Reformed  communions,  which  to-day 
still  hold  him  in  reverence  as  their  founder,  although 


THE  PERIOD  OF  SEPARA  TION  AND  REFORM    225 

they  may  have  drifted  far  from  the  items  of  religious 
speculation  which  to  his  mind  were  the  essentials  of 
Christian  orthodoxy. 

Apart  from  the  political  environment  offered  by  the 
autonomous  communities  of  the  Swiss  people  it  is  not 
likely  that  the  theological  systems  of  either  Zwingli 
or  Calvin  would  have  secured  protection.  Of  the  two 
leaders,  Zwingli  represents  the  most  emphatic  break 
with  historical  Christianity.  He  made  a  relentless 
use  of  the  critical  methods  of  humanism  in  which  he 
had  been  trained  and  aided  by  his  sympathy  with 
Stoicism  and  with  Renaissance  Platonism,  repre- 
sented by  Pico,  he  had  worked  out  a  theory  of  purely 
subjective  religion  which  foreshadows  many  of  the 
tendencies  of  modern  religious  thought.  Calvin  was 
far  more  under  the  influence  of  scholastic  theology 
than  Zwingli.  The  majesty  and  omnipotence  of 
God  was  made  the  centre  of  a  closely  rivetted  doc- 
trinal system.  His  ideal  of  God's  kingdom  was 
taken  from  the  Old  Testament  rather  than  from  the 
Gospel.  The  Scriptures,  as  a  whole,  were  given  the 
position  of  an  inflexible  code  of  law,  and  the  Christian 
community  was  expected  to  put  this  code  into  opera- 
tion by  force  on  those  who  did  not  willingly  receive 
it.  Only  by  strenuous  discipline  could  the  faithful 
themselves  be  kept  up  to  the  standards  of  theocratic 
rule.  No  mediaeval  monastery  could  be  more  strictly 
organized  and  controlled  than  the  town  over  which 
Calvin  ruled.  While  Zwingli  was  content  to  look 
up  to  the  State  as  the  ally  and  supporter  of  his  reli- 
i6 


226  MODERN  CHURCH  HISTOR  Y 

gious  principles,  in  Calvin's  view  the  State  could 
only  be  treated  as  endurable  in  so  far  as  it  carried 
out  the  mission  assigned  to  it  by  the  Church. 

The  Anglican  Reformation 

At  the  sacrifice  of  chronological  sequence,  we  have 
given  an  outline  of  the  three  great  leaders  of  the  re- 
ligious revolution  of  the  sixteenth  century.  In  other 
countries  the  transition  from  the  old  to  the  new  was 
accomplished  under  different  conditions,  although 
nowhere  can  the  influence  of  the  champions  of  the 
Continental  Reformation  in  Germany  and  Switzerland 
be  neglected  or  minimized.  In  no  country  is  it  so 
difficult  to  trace  the  complexities  of  this  revolutionary 
era  as  in  England.  Although  elsewhere  historical  re- 
seach  has  attained  practically  acknowledged  results, 
the  cause  of  the  English  Reformation  is  still  an  ob- 
ject of  heated  debate.  Amid  the  intricacies  of  de- 
tails involving  law,  doctrine  and  personal  character, 
it  is  not  easy  to  keep  a  well-balanced  position.  Many 
mistakes,  it  must  be  said,  have  arisen  because  of  the 
tendency  to  isolate  English  conditions,  and  one  is  too 
often  tempted  to  read  to-day  into  the  past  elements 
supposedly  peculiar  to  national  character  which, 
though  they  may  have  existed  before  in  germ,  were 
only  developed  to  full  potency  by  the  happenings  of 
the  Tudor  period  itself. 

It  is  frequently  the  fashion  to  insist  that  the  spread 
of  education  is  enough  to  explain  the  readiness  of 
the   English   nation   to   throw   off   the   yoke  of  the 


THE  PERIOD  OF  SEPARA  TION  AND  REFORM    227 

Roman  Curia,  Too  much  emphasis  had  been  placed 
on  the  influence  of  Humanism  in  preparing  the  way 
for  the  coming  changes.  This  is  only  natural  and  no 
one  need  to-day  apologize  for  respect  shown  to  such 
men  as  Sir  Thomas  More  and  Colet,  who,  with  the 
whole  group  of  the  so-called  Oxford  reformers,  ac- 
cepted in  an  independent  way  the  leadership  of  Eras- 
mus. To  such  a  type  of  mind  there  was  nothing 
attractive  in  any  kind  of  revolution,  and  it  must  be 
frankly  said  that  it  is  unjust  to  suggest  that  the 
illegalities  and  violence  of  the  Tudor  method  of  re- 
form can  be  traced  back  to  the  English  humanists. 
In  one  way  the  appeal  of  Colet  for  a  Church  which 
recognized  its  primary  moral  mission  to  the  masses 
of  the  people  must  have  been  especially  impressive, 
because  he  had  little  faith  in  mere  machinery.  In  so 
far  then  he  was  anti-papal,  but  one  and  all  the  English 
humanists  had  no  love  for  restoring  Christianity  by 
promoting  division.  The  actual  direction  of  re- 
ligious reform  fell  into  different  hands.  It  was  engi- 
neered by  a  combination  of  shrewd  politicians  and 
indefatigable  partisans  without  any  of  that  care  for 
logical  consistency  which  distinguished  Calvin,  and 
its  stages  are  not  illuminated  by  the  splendid,  if  un- 
balanced, moral  and  spiritual  fervor  of  Luther.  In 
some  ways  the  result,  which  was  in  no  way  the  product 
of  genius,  achieved  an  unexpected  success.  The  re> 
ligious  settlement  which  seemed  especially  built  to 
unsettle  and  dissatisfy  became  an  object  of  national 
pride.      Its  authors,  second-rate  men  as  they  mostly 


228  MODERN  CHURCH  HISTORY 

were,  not  endowed  with  the  qualities  which  make  for 
heroism,  built  better  than  the)'  knew.  They  also  did 
not  know  what  valuable  cooperation  they  would  re- 
ceive from  the  See  of  Rome,  whose  whole  dealing 
with  the  religious  situation  in  England  revealed  an 
incredible  amount  of  blundering  incompetency. 

Yet  with  all  these  favoring  factors  in  behalf  of 
religious  revolution,  the  driving  power  came  from  the 
Tudor  monarchy.  It  is  purposeless  to  ask  if  the 
policy  adopted  by  England's  rulers  was  popular;  no 
one  thought  of  applying  the  ''referendum"  standard 
in  the  sixteenth  century,  and  interesting  as  it  would 
be  there  is  little  use  to-day  in  trying  to  speculate  as 
to  how  many  people  in  Edward  VI's  time  preferred 
the  Roman  to  the  Anglican  Mass.  It  is  easier  to 
answer  this  question  later  on  at  the  close  of  Eliza- 
beth's reign,  for  the  land  had  then  been  threatened 
by  the  Spanish  Armada. 

For  the  immediate  genesis  of  the  Anglican  refor- 
mation one  must  look  to  the  personal  will  of  Henry 
VIII,  a  ruler  who  understood  the  art  of  government, 
although  his  ideals  were  often  unworthy  and  his  acts 
tyrannical.  He  aimed  at  absolutism,  and  he  made  it 
to  the  interest  of  certain  classes  of  his  subjects  to 
secure  what  their  ruler  desired.  In  selecting  the 
men  to  carry  out  this  scheme,  Henry  showed  keen 
insight  into  personal  capacity.  No  better  servant  in 
diplomacy  could  have  been  selected  than  Cardinal 
Wolsey  when  diplomacy  was  needed ;  and  when  another 
age  was  ushered  in  with  new  needs,  other  men  equally 


THE  PERIOD  OE  SEP  A  RA  TION  A  NO  REEORM     229 

efficient  for  the  work  the  king  set  them  to  do,  Crom- 
well and  Cranmer  were  secured. 

Apologists  and  advocates  have  been  busy  in  ex- 
culpating or  blaming  the  king  for  his  desire  to  secure 
a  divorce  from  Queen  Catherine,  This  question  has 
been  debated  too  much  from  a  point  of  view  in- 
fluenced by  the  long  and  complicated  train  of  inci- 
dents which  developed  from  the  divorce.  We  know 
that  matrimonial  cases  of  this  kind  were  not  matters 
decided  at  Rome  by  ethical  appeals.  The  Curia  was 
avowedly  opportunistic  in  its  actions.  Henry's  case 
was  only  unique  because  there  were  not  often  matri- 
monial cases  which  involved  the  aunt  of  an  emperor 
and  the  daughter  of  a  king  of  Spain.  It  is  useless 
to  try  to  discover  serious  moral  grounds  either  in  the 
pope's  refusal  to  give  Henry  permission  to  marry 
Anne  Bullen,  or  in  the  monarch's  searchings  of  con- 
science in  regard  to  the  lawfulness  of  his  marriage  to 
a  deceased  brother's  wife.  The  prospects  of  a  schism, 
weighty  as  they  were,  were  not  of  a  nature  to  terrify 
the  king;  in  preceding  ages  there  had  been  many 
cases  of  interruption  of  communion  with  the  Roman 
See. 

The  king  made  sure  of  efficient  support  from  the 
large  landed  proprietors  of  England  by  coupling  with 
the  parliamentary  acts,  which  destroyed  the  connec- 
tion with  the  papacy,  a  drastic  measure  by  which 
the  monasteries  were  dissolved  and  their  property 
distributed  to  the  upper  classes.  In  the  towns  not 
only  had  the  teaching  of  the  Lollards  still  survived, 


230  MODERN  CHURCH  HISTORY 

but  also  the  spread  of  the  reforming  doctrines  from 
Germany  had  already  attained  considerable  pro- 
portions. In  commercial  centres,  even  where  these 
influences  did  not  extend,  the  Church  was  not  popular; 
Henry,  therefore,  had  on  his  side  the  backing  of  very 
important  elements  of  the  population.  The  repre- 
sentatives of  the  clergy  themselves  in  Convocation 
made  a  ready  submission  and  acknowledged  the  un- 
limited control  of  the  monarch  over  the  Church.  The 
income  and  the  jurisdiction  hitherto  possessed  by  the 
Roman  See  over  England  passed  immediately  into 
the  royal  hands.  Only  a  few  protested,  and  even 
among  those  who  suffered  death  there  were  not 
many  who  perished  simply  because  of  their  loyalty 
to  the  Roman  system.  The  question  that  brought 
More  to  the  block  was  a  purely  tyrannical  test  im- 
posed on  a  man's  private  opinion  regarding  the  legiti- 
macy of  the  recent  divorce  proceedings.  More  was 
willing  to  accept  as  a  loyal  subject  the  new  ecclesi- 
astical legislation. 

The  secularization  of  the  monastic  houses  was 
astutely  and  unscrupulously  carried  out  by  Thomas 
Cromwell,  who  began  his  work  in  1535  with  the  sup- 
pression of  the  smaller  communities;  the  larger  soon 
followed.  There  were  approximately  twelve  hundred 
monastic  houses  in  England,  mostly  old  foundations. 
Economically,  they  were  not  well  managed,  and 
though  they  had  not  received  many  benefactions  since 
the  reign  of  Henry  IV  they  still  owned  enormous 
landed  estates.     The  old  scandalous  gossip  which  had 


THE  PERIOD  OF  SEPARA  TION  AND  REFORM    231 

been  worked  up  with  such  success  before  against  the 
Templars  was  all  put  to  good  use  again  by  Crom- 
well's bands  of  disreputable  agents.  Even  had  the 
English  monks  and  nuns  been  paragons  of  virtue  like 
the  citizens  of  More's  Utopia,  Cromwell's  well-paid 
emissaries  would  have  found  ground  for  charges.  As 
a  matter  of  fact  these  communities  were  not  models 
in  any  sense  of  the  word;  they  were  filled  with 
commonplace  individuals,  not  conspicuous  either  for 
virtue  or  vice.  The  time  of  their  usefulness  to 
society  had  probably  passed,  but  those  who  despoiled 
them  of  their  goods  and  defamed  their  characters  are 
in  need  of  a  far  larger  measure  of  historical  whitewash. 
Artistically  judged,  the  destruction  of  monastic 
buildings  was  deplorable  in  its  vandalism,  and  those 
responsible  for  the  decay  and  ruin  of  these  splendid 
monuments  of  Gothic  art  deserve  to  be  pilloried 
along  with  the  lime-burners  of  mediaeval  Rome  and 
the  debased  architects  who  encrusted  ancient  Italian 
church  edifices  with  rococo  trimmings. 

It  was  the  king's  policy  to  encourage  no  doctrinal 
change  in  the  English  Church  after  its  isolation. 
The  chief  object  was  to  establish  the  royal  supremacy 
in  affairs  of  church  government,  and  no  encourage- 
ment was  given  to  the  spread  of  novel  doctrines  or 
teachings  from  the  Continent.  But  the  alliance  of 
conservative  doctrine  with  radical  external  changes 
in  the  order  and  discipline  of  the  Church  could  not 
long  be  maintained.  As  a  directory  and  guide  for 
public   preaching  Ten  Articles  were  issued  by  au- 


232  MODERN  CHURCH  HISTORY 

thority  in  1536,  which  attest  the  influence  on  Arch- 
bishop Cranmer  of  Lutheran  teaching,  yet  several 
essential  earmarks  of  Lutheran  teaching  are  not 
present  in  this  pronouncement;  even  in  regard  to 
popular  ceremonies  and  traditions  the  stand  taken  is 
in  every  way  marked  by  moderation.  Much  more 
indicative  of  novelty  was  the  publication  of  a  trans- 
lation of  the  Bible  for  congregational  use.  Though 
it  is  possible  to  discover  the  evidences  of  changes  of 
direction  in  the  national  religious  policy  it  lasted 
only  a  short  time,  for  in  1539  Six  Articles  were  is- 
sued, all  firmly  supporting  the  old  system ;  for  ex- 
ample, communion  in  one  kind  was  defended  and  the 
severest  penalties  threatened  against  those  who  denied 
the  doctrine  of  Transubstantiation. 

Such  were  the  principles  which  marked  the  Henri- 
cian  Settlement  up  to  the  time  of  his  death  in  1547. 
Those  who  were  convicted  of  adhering  to  continental 
innovation  were  burned  as  heretics,  and  the  govern- 
ment acted  with  the  same  heartless  severity  towards 
the  supporters  of  the  old  regime,  fourteen  of  whom 
perished  because  they  denied  the  royal  supremacy 
as  by  law  established.  The  conservative  party  in  the 
Church  had  an  able  champion  in  the  person  of  Bishop 
Gardiner  of  Winchester,  yet  Henry's  personal  affec- 
tion for  Archbishop  Cranmer,  who  was  notoriously 
in  sympathy  with  German  doctrinal  views,  main- 
tained as  primate  of  the  Church  a  prelate  who,  if  he 
had  been  in  the  ranks  of  the  common  people,  might 
have  perished  at  the  stake  as  an  heretical  suspect. 


THE  PERIOD  OF  SEPARA  TION  A ND  REFORM      233 

In  general,  it  is  not  easy  to  understand  the  religious 
policy  of  Henry's  later  years  except  in  connection  with 
the  king's  movements  in  international  diplomacy  and 
his  habit  of  balancing  one  group  of  large  landowners 
and  nobles  against  another.  How  he  subordinated 
the  interest  of  his  religious  system  to  the  financial 
needs  of  his  government  may  be  seen  in  the  passage 
of  an  act  in  1545  for  the  dissolution  of  charitable 
foundations,  hospitals  and  free  chapels.  This  meas- 
ure was  especially  aimed  at  institutions  founded 
by  generations  of  benefactors  for  the  offering  of 
prayers  for  the  departed,  yet  when  it  was  accepted 
nothing  had  been  done  to  discourage  or  discredit 
this  practice  in  any  of  the  previous  doctrinal  pro- 
nouncements. 

The  king's  recognition  of  the  need  for  providing 
popular  religious  instruction  can  be  seen  in  the  publi- 
cation of  the  King's  Primer  which  contained  the 
Hours,  Penitential  Psalms,  and  other  devotional  ma- 
terial in  English.  In  it  is  to  be  found  the  original 
form  of  the  present  Anglican  Litany  prepared  by 
Archbishop  Cranmer  when  the  king  desired  to  revive 
the  already  obsolete  practice  of  open-air  processions. 
In  spite,  too,  of  the  rigid  doctrinal  conservatism  of  the 
end  of  the  reign,  Henry  never  withdrew  the  translation 
of  the  Bible,  nor  did  he  provide  for  the  reintroduction 
of  relics  and  image  which  had  been  abolished  coinci- 
dently  with  the  dissolution  of  the  monastic  houses. 
The  royal  leadership,  unworthy  and  arbitrary  as  it 
was,  was  generally  applauded;  only  once  did  Henry's 


234  MODERN  CHURCH  HISTORY 

religious  policy  bring  him  in  danger  of  a  serious  re- 
volt (Pilgrimage  of  Grace,  1536). 

The  succession  of  Edward  VI  showed  how  far  the 
will  of  the  dead  monarch  had  stood  in  the  way  of  a 
more  radical  revolution  in  the  national  Church  in  the 
direction  of  the  religious  system  which  had  won  its 
way  on  the  Continent.  Many  of  the  most  distinctive 
features  of  the  religious  order  of  the  previous  reign 
were  abandoned.  The  conservatives  soon  lost  con- 
trol ;  private  masses  were  forbidden,  fast  days  and 
confessions  were  no  longer  obligatory,  the  laws 
against  heresy  were  annulled,  the  Six  Articles  given 
up,  and  communion  in  both  kinds  introduced.  The 
next  step  was  the  abolition  of  all  religious  associations, 
guilds,  colleges  and  fraternities.  A  further  indi- 
cation of  the  government's  intention  was  the  sum- 
moning to  England  of  men  who  like  Bucer  and  Peter 
Martyr  were  continental  reformers  of  a  moderate 
type.  Strict  measures  were  taken  to  enforce  by  a 
commission  acting  with  rigid  instruction  the  ob- 
servance throughout  the  country  of  the  new  ecclesi- 
astical policy  as  it  affected  teaching,  preaching  and 
conduct.  The  proscriptions  dealt  chiefly  with  the 
continuance  of  mediaeval  practices,  such  as  the  vene- 
ration of  images,  the  use  of  the  Bible  in  English  in 
the  services,  the  reading  of  homilies.  The  practical 
results  encouraged  a  sympathetic  attitude  towards 
innovations  of  a  more  radical  character.  As  the 
young  king  was  in  his  minority,  the  government  was 
in  the  hands  first   of   Somerset   and   afterwards   of 


THE  PERIOD  OF  SEPARA  TION  AND  REFORM     235 

Northumberland,  both  allied  with  the  land-owning 
oligarchy  and  neither  of  whom  can  be  said  to  have 
had  stronger  personal  religious  convictions  than 
Henry  VIII's  premier,  Cromwell,  who  preferred 
Machiavelli  to  Luther. 

While  Somerset  was  still  in  power  the  first  English 
Prayer  Book  appeared  (1549),  in  the  preparation  of 
which  Cranmer  had  fortunately  the  chief  responsi- 
bility; his  mastery  of  English  diction  and  his  pains- 
taking liturgical  sholarship  have  both  contributed  to 
make  the  English  Common  Prayer  Book  a  unique  and 
precious  manual  of  popular  devotion.  But  this 
primary  place  in  the  affection  of  the  people  it  only 
won  by  degrees.  At  the  time  it  was  introduced  it 
became  the  occasion  of  revolts  and  disturbances  on 
the  part  of  those  who  were  attached  to  the  superceded 
Service;  a  situation  that  gave  Edward's  government 
much  concern  and  led  to  a  series  of  sanguinary  re- 
pressive measures  in  which  foreign  mercenaries  had 
to  be  employed.  From  the  point  of  view  of  later 
editions  of  the  Prayer  Book,  this  first  book  of  Edward 
VI's  is  distinguished  by  its  conservatism;  on  almost 
every  crucial  point  respect  for  the  Catholic  past  is 
clearly  in  evidence,  and  the  greatest  care  was  taken  to 
preserve  strict  doctrinal  continuity  with  the  earliest 
age  of  the  universal  Church. 

It  seems  strange  that  the  stage  now  reached  in 
innovation  was  not  satisfactory.  Popular  approval  or 
disapproval,  of  course,  counted  for  little;  but  even 
allowing  for  the  arbitrary  methods  of  an  oligarchy, 


236  MODERN  CHURCH  HISTOR  Y 

it  is  not  easy  to  discern  why  Northumberland,  who 
succeeded  Somerset  as  Protector,  placed  himself  in 
the  hands  of  the  radical  wing  of  reformers,  though 
their  numbers  were  now  materially  reinforced  by  a 
group  of  foreigners  who  had  been  trained  in  Switzer- 
land either  under  Calvinistic  or  Zwinglian, influence. 
The  conservative  party  saw  its  leaders  in  the  episcopate 
dispossessed  and  their  places  taken  by  extremists  of 
Bishop  Hooper's  type,  whose  aims  were  guided  by  a 
strenuous  antagonism  to  the  Prayer  Book.  Bishop 
Ridley  of  London  inaugurated  soon  a  crusade  against 
stone  altars  in  1550  and  steps  were  then  taken  to 
bring  the  Prayer  Book  into  harmony  with  the  new 
current  in  theological  sympathies. 

The  changes  made  in  the  Book  of  1552  attest  the 
predominance  of  the  Swiss  type  of  reform.  This 
does  not  at  all  mean  that  this  revised  Prayer  Book 
would  have  satisfied  Geneva  or  Berne.  What  hap- 
pened was  the  abandonment  of  some  of  the  conserva- 
tive features  of  the  previous  volume,  accomplished 
under  pressure  from  men  who  held  Swiss  reform  as 
the  only  goal  of  all  innovation.  Many  historic  cere- 
monies were  abandoned ;  the  Communion  Office  was 
defaced  and  the  bare  ceremonial  or  absence  of  cere- 
monial so  dear  to  the  Swiss  reforming  theorists  became 
the  norm  of  public  worship.  Coincident  with  the 
publication  of  this  book  there  appeared  Forty-two 
Articles  in  which  the  doctrinal  standards  of  the  re- 
vising leaders  were  set  forth,  but  the  collection  bears 
the  impress  of  Cranmer's  influence.     Impressionable 


THE  PERIOD  OF  SEP  A  RA  TION  A  ND  REFORM     111 


as  he  was,  the  extreme  statements  of  the  Calvinistic 
formularies  are  softened  down,  and  sometimes  com- 
bined with  expressions  and  definitions  reflecting  other 
and  not  infrequently  antagonistic  points  of  view. 

Before,  however,  either  Articles  or  Prayer  Book 
were  put  in  force,  the  young  king,  who  had  a  pre- 
cocious mental  development  and  a  weak  physique, 
died  (July  5,  1553).  The  succession  of  his  elder  sister 
Mary,  who  had  always  been  opposed  to  her  f rather' s 
ideals  of  church  government  and  had  been  harshly 
used  during  her  brother's  reign  because  of  her  fidelity 
to  her  convictions,  immediately  caused  a  reaction. 
A  persistent  effort  was  made  to  bring  back  the  whole 
kingdom  under  papal  rule.  Parliament  easily  re- 
versed the  legislation  on  which  Henry  VIII's  church 
polity  depended.  The  group  of  reformers,  moderate 
as  well  as  radical,  found  themselves  immediately  out 
of  favor.  The  stand  taken  by  the  queen  was  accentu- 
ated by  her  marriage  with  Philip  II  of  Spain,  who 
was  known  as  a  fanatical  opponent  of  any  innovation 
in  doctrine  or  practice.  His  axiom  was  ''not  reign 
at  all  rather  than  reign  over  heretics."  A  policy  of 
''thorough"  was  soon  put  into  force.  Cardinal  Pole 
was  admitted  into  the  country  as  papal  legate  and 
the  kingdom  was  solemnly  reconciled  to  the  Roman 
obedience. 

Yet  with  the  disappearance  of  all  of  Henry's 
ecclesiastical  legislation  from  the  statute  book  the 
restoration  of  monastic  lands  was  not  attempted,  and 
in  this  way  the  support  of  the  landed  aristocracy  was 


238  MODERN  CHURCH  HISTOR  Y 

secured.  With  this  asset,  and  probably  because  of 
the  success  of  the  government  in  repressing  all  move- 
ments to  select  rival  sovereigns  faithful  to  the  re- 
forming interest,  a  step  was  taken  to  promote  re- 
ligious uniformity  that  resulted  in  a  disastrous  era 
of  persecution,  and  the  prisons  were  filled  with  those 
who  refused  to  conform  to  the  Roman  communion. 
Parliament  passed  a  rigorous  statute  for  the  punish- 
ment of  heresy,  which,  though  administered  with 
varying  degrees  of  severity  in  different  localities, 
brought  to  the  stake,  in  the  period  of  four  years,  two 
hundred  and  eighty  persons,  among  whom  were  five 
bishops  of  the  two  preceding  reigns,  the  most  notable 
of  all  being  Cranmer  and  Ridley  and  Latimer.  Many 
took  flight  to  the  Continent,  either  to  the  imperial 
towns  of  Germany  or  to  Switzerland,  where  Calvin- 
istic  principles  were  professed. 

Persecution  was  a  part  of  the  system  for  attaining 
uniformity  and  so  acknowledged  as  legitimate  by 
almost  all  sixteenth  century  religious  bodies.  In 
principle  Mary  did  not  stand  isolated ;  but  her 
sombre  temper  caused  her  to  apply  the  persecuting 
principle  without  that  shrewd  understanding  of  time, 
place,  or  appreciation  of  the  individual  status  of  the 
accused,  which  had  enabled  her  father  to  appear  as  a 
social  regenerator  and  defender  of  his  country, 
although  he  subjected  his  many  victims  to  the  death 
penalty  with  as  little  ethical  compunction  as  his  un- 
happy daughter.  Mary,  too,  had  made  herself  un- 
popular by  her  alliance  with  the  Spanish  dynasty; 


THE  PERIOD  OF  SEPARA  TION  AND  REFORM     239 

she  allowed  her  government  to  be  used  to  promote 
the  interest  of  the  Hapsburg  house,  and  worse  than 
all  there  were  many  failures  in  her  continental  policy, 
especially  the  war  with  France  by  which  Calais  was 
lost.  Even  the  Pope,  Paul  IV,  who  detested  the 
House  of  Austria  and  Spain  because  of  its  inter- 
ference in  Italy,  ceased  to  be  on  good  terms  with  the 
Queen.  He  spoke  of  Philip  II  as  a  fool  and  an 
heretic,  took  away  Pole's  legatine  authority,  and  be- 
fore her  death  Mary,  who  had  the  sturdiness  of  the 
Tudors,  issued  directions  that  no  papal  document 
should  be  admitted  to  England. 

Immediately  after  Mary's  death  (Nov.  17,  1558) 
the  succession  of  Elizabeth  brought  about  the  down- 
fall of  this  badly  conceived  and  disastrously  effected 
plan  for  restoring  papal  absolutism.  Elizabeth, 
though  it  is  doubtful  whether  her  aims  were  swayed 
by  any  deep  religious  convictions,  soon  showed  her 
purpose  to  revert  to  the  reformation  status  of  the 
Church  interrupted  by  her  brother's  death.  She 
selected  as  her  counsellors  men  of  known  sympathies 
with  the  Edwardian  Settlement,  and  the  whole 
machinery  of  parliament  was  used  to  preface  this 
programme  of  religious  restoration.  The  royal  su- 
premacy again  took  its  place  on  the  statute  book, 
but  with  the  significant  alteration  of  the  phrase 
''Supreme  Head"  into  "Supreme  Governor".  One 
uniform  worship  and  ritual  was  prescribed  for  the 
whole  kingdom  in  the  Uniformity  Act,  with  its 
accompanying  provision  of  a  new  revised  Common 


240  MODERN  CHURCH  HISTORY 

Prayer  Book,  which  was  somewhat  more  conservative 
than  Edward  VFs  Second  Book.  That  the  passage 
of  this  legislation  was  not  by  any  means  generally 
acceptable  may  be  seen  from  the  fact  that  when  the 
Prayer  Book  became  law,  it  passed  the  House  of 
Lords  by  a  majority  only  of  three  votes.  A  novel 
feature  of  this  Uniformity  Act  was  a  provision 
which  made  church  attendance  on  Sundays  and  Holy 
Days  obligatory  under  penalty  of  a  money  payment. 
A  series  of  special  injunctions  were  issued  for 
which  the  usage  in  Edward's  reign  was  taken  as  a 
model.  Under  the  application  of  these  injunctions 
many  church  ornaments,  vestments,  shrines  and 
pictures  were  destroyed. 

It  is  difficult  to  see  how  this  crusade  on  behalf  of 
unadorned  worship  can  be  reconciled  with  the 
presence  in  the  Elizabethan  Prayer  Book  of  the 
celebrated  Ornaments  Rubric  by  which  the  ritual  and 
ceremonial  uses  of  the  earlier  period  of  Edward  VI's 
reign  were  retained.  The  Rubric  remained  a  dead 
letter  during  the  Queen's  reign  and  no  attention  was 
given  to  it,  nor  did  any  discussion  take  place  as  to 
its  significance.  It  may  have  been  added  to  the  Book 
by  the  Privy  Council  either  as  a  lure  to  the  conserv- 
ative party  or  as  a  means  to  explain  the  exercise  of 
toleration  to  those  who,  if  they  did  not  fully  accept 
a  somewhat  radical  type  of  reform,  might  prove  weak 
in  their  actual  loyalty  to  Papalism.  In  any  case  the 
government's  attempts  at  reconciliation  failed,  for 
though  most  of   the   clergy    conformed    to   the   new 


THE  PERIOD  OF  SEPARA  TION  AND  REFORM     241 

Settlement  the  old  principles  had  a  strong  hold  among 
the  people,  and  of  the  Marian  bishops  only  one  ac- 
cepted the  new  regime.  The  rest  were  deprived ;  a 
few  of  the  sees  were  now  filled  with  bishops  who  had 
been  consecrated  under  Henry  and  Edward,  but  the 
vacancies  had  mostly  to  be  supplied  by  new  men. 

The  vacancy  in  the  primatial  See  of  Canterbury, 
brought  about  by  the  death  of  Cardinal  Pole  at  the 
close  of  Mary's  reign,  was  now  filled  by  Matthew 
Parker  under  conditions  which,  without  due  cause, 
have  given  rise  to  much  controversy.  The  contention 
that  no  care  was  used  in  providing  for  a  legitimate 
succession  has  been  abandoned,  and  now  that  the 
historical  details  of  the  Consecration  as  it  actually 
happened  are  sufficiently  established,  criticism  of  the 
legitimacy  of  the  service  has  been  concentrated  by 
Roman  Catholic  writers  on  the  technical  complete- 
ness of  the  Ordinal  used. 

In  the  early  years  of  the  reign  a  revised  set  of 
Articles,  reduced  from  forty-two  to  thirty-eight  then 
increased  sometime  afterwards  to  thirty-nine,  was 
prepared  under  Parker's  direction.  These  formu- 
laries, now  in  a  shape  which  indicate  a  moderate 
sympathy  with  Calvinism,  were  in  1571  made  obli- 
gatory on  every  clergyman  admitted  to  a  benefice. 
The  religious  programme  of  the  new  reign  was 
terminated  by  the  publication  of  a  Catechism  and 
by  additions  to  the  Book  of  Homilies,  a  collection  of 
authorized  sermons  which  had  been  issued  in  Ed- 
ward's reign. 
17 


242  MODERN  CHURCH  HISTORY 

Carefully  drawn  as  were  the  statutory  enactments 
for  rendering  the  new  church  arrangements  binding 
upon  the  people,  they  were  not  found  effective.  Many 
alienated  themselves  from  the  church  services  of  the 
new  model,  and  in  not  a  few  cases  the  old  ceremonial 
worship  and  the  Latin  use  were  kept  up  privately. 
An  addition  to  the  Supremacy  Act  had  to  be  passed 
by  which  these  nonconformists  of  the  conservative 
side  were  selected  for  rigorous  treatment.  Passive  re- 
sisters  were  encouraged  to  pass  into  obstruction  of  a 
more  aggressive  character  by  men  trained  in  schools 
of  the  Old  Learning  on  the  Continent  at  Louvain, 
Douai  and  Rome.  Those  who  hoped  for  a  restoration 
of  communion  with  the  Roman  See  were  wont  to 
look  for  a  change  of  dynasty  through  the  transference 
of  the  crown  to  Mary,  Queen  of  Scotland,  and  because 
of  expected  aid  from  the  Spanish  monarchy,  whose 
representative,  Philip  II,  was  incessantly  active  in 
opposing  everywhere  the  reforming  movement.  Re- 
bellion broke  out  in  the  north  of  England,  but  the 
promised  help  from  Spain  failed  to  arrive  in  time. 
Just  as  this  movement  collapsed  Pius  V  issued  a  bull 
depriving  Elizabeth  of  her  crown  and  absolving  the 
people  from  allegiance  to  her. 

This  ill-conceived  step  led  to  the  exercise  of  a 
stricter  vigilance  on  all  Papists,  as  those  who  belonged 
to  the  conservative  faction  were  called.  Measures  of  a 
sterner  character  were  inflicted  also  upon  the  emissa- 
ries of  the  Roman  propaganda,  the  so-called  "foreign 
priests"  who  went  about  the  country  encouraging  the 


THE  PERIOD  OF  SEPARA  TION  AND  REFORM    243 

disaffected  to  revolt.  Some  were  imprisoned  while 
others,  the  more  active  convicted  of  wishing  to  over- 
throw the  existing  government  in  order  to  secure  the 
final  and  exclusive  predominance  of  the  old  faith, 
were  put  to  death  as  traitors.  The  situation  became 
more  acute  when  Philip  sent  his  famous  Armada  to 
reduce  the  kingdom  to  submission,  planning  both  to 
make  it  an  appanage  of  the  Spanish  Crown  and  to 
restore  it  to  the  Roman  obedience.  His  purpose 
was  resented  even  by  patriotic  Romanists  who  took 
part  with  the  rest  of  their  fellow-cuntrymen  in  re- 
sisting foreign  aggression.  But  neither  the  execution 
of  the  Scottish  queen  nor  the  defeat  of  the  Armada 
put  a  stop  to  the  plots  against  Elizabeth's  life. 

The  versatile  inventiveness  of  the  group  of  fanatics 
who  wished  to  secure  another  ruler  only  encouraged 
the  government  to  discover  and  apply  new  methods  of 
repression.  Through  the  application  of  the  Act  of 
Thirteenth  Elizabeth  C.  2,  sixty-one  priests,  forty- 
nine  laymen,  it  is  estimated,  were  subjected  to  the 
death  penalty  between  1588  and  1603.  This  is  a 
pitiable  record,  but  it  is  worth  noting  that  even  those 
who  suffered  considered  this  legislation  in  no  way 
a  unique  example  of  the  persecuting  spirit,  while 
all  accepted  it  as  the  logical  result  of  the  policy  of 
promoting  religious  uniformity  that  no  religious  party 
except  the  Anabaptists  then  questioned.  Dr.  Ingram 
does  not  exaggerate  when  he  says,  speaking  of  the 
Elizabethan  Settlement  {^England  and  Rome,  p.  223), 
"It  was  the  mildest  form  of  religious  coercion  which 


244  MODERN  CHURCH  HISTORY 


had  ever  been  known  up  to  that  period  since  the  time 
when  religion  became  incorporated  with  the  State." 
Naturally  no  greater  reflection  can  be  cast  upon  any 
age  than  to  be  obliged  to  eulogize  the  doing  to  death 
of  victims  of  religious  difference  in  a  particular 
country  because  those  who  so  perished  were  few  in 
number.  The  conditions  where  such  apologies  are 
needed  illustrate  in  what  a  narrow  technical  sense 
the  word  Reformation  must  be  used. 

While  on  the  part  of  conservatives  and  Romanists 
the  church  order  of  Elizabeth  met  with  persistent 
resistence  that  not  infrequently  endangered  the  con- 
tinuance of  her  rule,  it  proved  also  unsatisfactory  to 
many  extreme  reformers,  especially  to  refugees  from 
the  centres  of  continental  reform  where  Calvinism 
predominated.  Of  this  class  three  hundred  returned 
home  after  Mary's  death  determined  to  press  their 
claims  on  the  government  for  radical  religious 
changes.  The  extremists  showed  their  hand  in  the 
Convocation  of  1563  when  a  solid  "block"  was  made 
against  the  continued  use  of  the  surplice,  which  was 
only  preserved  by  a  narrow  majority.  The  clergy, 
more  particularly  in  London  and  the  academic  bodies 
of  Oxford  and  Cambridge,  were  stout  champions  of 
Calvinistic  reforming  standards.  The  Puritan  party, 
as  they  now  began  to  be  called,  engaged  in  active  prop- 
agandism ;  they  held  clerical  meetings  of  an  informal 
devotional  character,  intending  that  ultimately  these 
gatherings  might  take  the  place  of  the  recognized 
church  services. 


THE  PERIOD  OF  SEP  A  RA  TION  AND  REFORM     IAS 

The  government  intervened  by  publishing  a  set  of 
rules  called  Advertisements,  which  the  bishops  were 
directed  to  enforce  to  produce  uniformity  in  doctrine, 
ceremonies  and  clerical  apparel.  One  in  particular 
appointed  the  use  of  the  cope  in  cathedral  and  col- 
legiate churches  for  the  ministration  of  the  Holy 
Communion,  while  in  all  ordinary  parish  churches 
the  surplice  was  prescribed.  As  a  result  a  number 
of  the  clergy  were  deprived  of  their  benefices  because 
of  their  objection  to  the  surplice.  But  these  repres- 
sive measures  failed  to  prevent  the  spread  of  Puritan 
disaffection.  A  formal  recommendation  was  sent  to 
Parliament  in  1571  to  introduce  a  complete  Presby- 
terian establishment.  Such  a  proposal  was  especially 
distasteful  to  Elizabeth,  who  fully  appreciated  the 
theocratic  tendencies  of  Calvinism,  as  they  could  be 
observed  at  close  quarters  across  the  Scotch  border. 
The  situation  was  not  an  easy  one  to  handle,  for 
various  members  of  the  episcopate  were  in  notorious 
sympathy  with  the  Puritan  movement.  It  was  not 
until  1583  when  Whitgift,  who  was  opposed  only  to 
the  administrative  side  of  Calvinism,  became  Arch- 
bishop of  Canterbury  that  the  queen  had  at  the  head 
of  the  English  Church  a  man  in  entire  sympathy  with 
her  anti-Puritan  policy.  Conscious  of  their  strong 
support  among  the  people  and  in  important  cities,  the 
Puritans  were  not  at  all  deterred  by  royal  disfavor. 
A  document,  the  Book  of  Holy  Discipline,  embodying 
their  demands  was  presented  to  Parliament  in  1583, 
and  three  years  later  their  plans  to  presbyterianize 


246  MODERN  CHURCH  HISTORY 

the  Church  were  only  frustrated  by  the  queen's  di- 
rect intervention. 

Among  the  Puritan  party  there  was  an  extreme  left 
wing,  who  gave  up  the  idea  of  overturning  the  national 
Church,  and  therefore  founded  separatist  congrega- 
tions. Prominent  in  this  opposition  to  the  Puritan 
willingness  to  bide  their  time  was  Robert  Browne, 
who  gave  his  name  to  the  sect  that  played  a  consider- 
able role  later  on  in  English  religious  history,  under 
the  designation  of  Brovvnists,  or  Independents.  Not 
differing  with  the  Presbyterians  on  doctrinal  points, 
this  body  held  to  the  principle  that  any  two  or  three 
individuals  had  the  right  to  form  a  separate  autono- 
mous congregation.  The  tendency  to  form  separatist 
meetings  for  religious  services  soon  extended  among 
the  Puritan  body  generally.  Repressive  measures  fol- 
lowed, such  as  that  passed  in  1593,  which  punished  by 
imprisonment  attendance  at  a  conventicle  or  absten- 
tion from  church  services.  Obstinate  offenders  were 
compelled  to  forfeit  their  property  and  leave  the 
country.  The  intense  feeling  caused  by  these  regu- 
lations was  directed  against  the  bishops,  who  were 
virulently  attacked  in  the  Marprelate  controversy. 
Three  Independent  leaders  were  put  to  death,  and 
many  took  refuge  in  Holland  from  the  sternness  of 
the  government  which,  probably  because  of  the  suc- 
cess it  had  achieved  in  breaking  up  Romanist  propa- 
ganda, had  no  intention  of  allowing  the  Puritan 
party  at  the  other  extreme  to  impair  the  standards  of 
the  official  rule  of  uniformity. 


THE  PERIOD  OF SEPARA  TION  AND  REFORM     247 

Discouraging  as  were  the  beginnings  of  the  last  An- 
glican Settlement  in  the  sixteenth  century,  and  artifi- 
cial as  appears  its  existence  under  government  control, 
it  became  fortunate  not  so  much  in  itself  as  in  the  en- 
emies it  made.    The  disloyalty  of  Roman  Catholics 
with  their  dependence  upon  Spanish  aid  on  the  one 
hand  and  Puritan  fanaticism  on  the  other,  bent,  as  it 
was,  on  establishing  an  ecclesiastical  'Hmperium  in 
imperio'\    contrived    to  impress    upon    the  national 
Church  a   specifically  English   character  which   the 
legal  bulwarks  created  for  it  could    never   have   be- 
stowed.    There   began   to  emerge  before   the   reign 
closed  a  central  type  of  Churchmen  whose  policy  and 
outlook  were  based  on  an  appeal  to  the  standards  of 
Christian  antiquity  and  who  refused  to ''swear  on  the 
words"  of  a  newer  master,  either  in  Rome  or  Geneva. 

Scotland  and  Ireland 

In  England's  immediate  neighboring  lands,— Scot- 
land and  Ireland,— her  own  religious  transitions  ex- 
erted much  influence,  though  in  the  case  of  Scotland 
the  first  impulse  to  change  came  from  the  introduc- 
tion of  Luther's  teaching  as  early  as  1527.  Persecu- 
tion followed,  and  with  some  victims;  yet  the  new 
teaching  became  soon  acceptable  to  the  Scotch  nobles 
who  looked  with  no  kindly  eye  on  the  ancient  Church 
which,  in  a  poor,  undeveloped  country,  was  remarka- 
ble for  its  rich  endowments.  When,  after  the  death 
of  James  V,  Arran  became  regent  and  the  demand  for 
innovation   grew   stronger  because   of   the   regent's 


248  MODERN  CHURCH  HISTORY 

favorable  attitude,  the  clash  between  the  two  oppos- 
ing parties  led  to  deeds  of  violence.  The  excution  of  a 
reforming  teacher,  Wishart  (1546),  was  soon  followed 
by  the  murder  of  Cardinal  Beaton,  who  was  held  by 
the  champions  of  the  new  system  to  exert  a  sinister 
influence  in  behalf  of  the  conservatives.  Under  the 
regency  of  the  queen  mother,  Mary  de  Guise,  the  ef- 
forts made  by  her  to  maintain  the  ancient  ecclesiasti- 
cal order  were  hurt  rather  than  helped  by  her  reliance 
on  aid  from  her  French  kinsmen.  But  the  final  and 
most  effective  attack  upon  it  was  due  to  John  Knox, 
a  disciple  of  Calvin,  who  may  not  inappropriately  be 
termed  the  "fire  eater"  of  the  Reformation.  No  man 
was  his  equal  in  self-confidence,  and  he  went  to  work 
to  destroy  the  ancient  Church  of  Scotland  in  the  spirit 
of  the  prophets  of  Israel.  Acts  of  iconoclasm  marked 
the  transition  from  the  old  to  the  new  order;  befere 
the  end  of  the  regency  the  most  stringent  laws  had 
been  issued  against  the  adherents  of  the  old  system. 
All  the  savagery  of  a  disordered  and  ill-controlled  com- 
munity accompanied  the  establishment  of  the  new 
order  which  was  modelled  after  Calvinistic  standards. 
John  Knox  was  notorious  for  his  uncouth  speech,  and 
cared  little  for  legality,  yet  his  work  had  certain  ad- 
mirable qualities  because  of  his  fearless  withstand- 
ing of  a  self-seeking  and  ruthless  oligarchy.  That  he 
could  do  this  indicated  not  only  personal  bravery  on 
his  part,  but  also  the  rise  in  an  almost  semi-barba- 
rous society  of  a  middle  class  which  demanded  to  be 
heard  and  heeded. 


THE  PERIOD  OF  SEPARA  TION  AND  REFORM    249 

The  advent  of  Queen  Mary  on  the  throne,  sympa- 
thetic as  she  was  towards  the  old  faith,  helped  her 
partisans  in  no  respect.  The  young  queen  showed  no 
statesmanship,  and  what  is  worse  had  an  awkward 
capacity  for  walking  into  traps  set  her  by  her  enemies. 
Her  misfortunes  and  her  dignity  under  them  have 
not  unnaturally  cast  a  glamor  over  a  reign  which,  if 
judged  by  itself,  was  a  deplorable  failure.  Even  a 
more  able  ruler  could  hardly  have  changed  the  relig- 
ious history  of  the  country.  The  ancient  Church  was 
an  anachronism,  opposed  as  it  was  to  the  natural  in- 
terests of  large  numbers  of  Scotchmen  and  unable  to 
answer  the  spiritual  needs  of  a  new  age.  Outside  of 
the  remote  regions  in  the  highlands,  adherents  of  the 
Roman  Communion  were  not  to  be  found,  and  the 
name  of  Scotland  in  religious  history  soon  became 
practically  identical  with  Presbyterianism. 

Ireland's  record  is  altogether  different;  no  statutory 
methods  attempted  by  the  Tudor  monarchs  could  in- 
duce the  Irish  to  forego  their  loyalty  to  the  See  of 
Rome.  Religious  innovations  soon  became  synony- 
mous with  alien  confiscations  which,  while  they  ad- 
vanced the  economic  development  of  the  land,  only 
increased  the  bitterness  of  the  native  inhabitants 
against  the  efforts  of  their  English  masters  to  force 
upon  them  a  religious  system  that  they  detested. 
Racial  antagonism,  adding  fire  to  religious  differ- 
ence, gave  to  the  contest  between  the  old  faith  and 
the  new  a  degree  of  savagery  only  to  be  paralleled 
where  there  has  been  in  modern  times  contact  in  the 


250  MODERN  CHURCH  HISTORY 

same  neighborhood  of  two  peoples  widely  separated 
in  cultural  advantages. 

France 

In  France  the  proximity  to  reform  of  the  Ger- 
man or  Swiss  type  did  not  fail,  as  we  have  noted  in 
reviewing  Calvin's  life,  to  produce  imitators  there. 
In  spite  of  repression  the  movement  towards  radical 
change  grew,  particularly  in  the  south  of  France. 
Political  programmes,  intended  to  obstruct  the  ad- 
vance of  Hapsburg  power,  frequently  drew  theValois 
princes  to  alliances  with  the  German  Protestant 
princes,  a  result  which  generally  coincided  with  the 
allowance  in  France  of  the  new  teaching.  The  intro- 
duction of  Calvin's  system,  as  it  gave  the  French 
movement  a  solidifying  power,  turned  it  into  an  ac- 
tive political  as  well  as  a  religious  organization.  It 
found,  too,  strong  supporters  among  the  French  no- 
bility, many  of  whom  combined  their  factional  ambi- 
tions with  those  violent  passions  which  so  frequently 
accompany  religious  difference.  The  rulers  of  the 
Valois  line,  mostly  men  of  poor  capacity  and  despic- 
able personal  character,  gave  an  opportunity  to  oli- 
garchial intrigue,  in  which  neither  the  adherents  of 
the  old  faith  nor  the  new  appear  in  favorable  colors. 

In  1560  the  Protestants,  or  rather  the  Reformed,  as 
Calvin's  followers  must  in  strictness  be  called,  se- 
cured a  semi-toleration,  but  the  situation  pleased 
neither  side.  Civil  war  broke  out  more  than  once ;  then 
came,  in  1572,  the  massacre  of  St.  Bartholomew,  by 


THE  PERIOD  OF  SEPARA  TION  AND  REFORM     251 

which  it  was  hoped  that  the  danger  of  the  ascendancy 
of  the  new  religionists  might  be  averted  by  a  murder 
en  masse.  As  first  planned  the  assassination  of  only 
a  few  leading  Huguenot  champions  was  proposed; 
but  as  this  plan  failed,  wholesale  butchery  was  re- 
solved upon,  with  a  success  that  anticipates  some  of 
the  worst  misdeeds  of  the  French  Revolution.  No  ad- 
vantage was  gained  by  the  Roman  Catholics  through 
this  act  of  savagery ;  the  Protestants  not  only  survived, 
but  secured  the  retention  of  the  special  privileges  by 
which  they  were  allowed  to  worship,  according  to 
their  tenets,  in  certain  specified  cities  and  on  the 
estates  of  the  landed  nobility.  Religious  divisions 
brought  the  Kingdom  into  a  perilous  position,  because 
the  Roman  Catholics  organized  a  league  which  de- 
pended upon  Spain  for  its  chief  support,  while  the 
Reformers  looked  to  England  for  aid. 

In  1589  the  situation  became  more  hopeful  because 
of  the  accession  of  Henry  IV,  a  member  of  the  house 
of  Bourbon,  who  had  been  trained  under  Calvinistic 
influences,  but  who  also,  for  the  sake  of  religious 
peace  and  to  preserve  his  people  from  Spanish  inter- 
ference, finally  adhered  to  the  Roman  Communion 
and  conceded  toleration  by  the  Edict  of  Nantes  (1598) 
to  his  former  coreligionists,  under  which  they  received 
general  political  equality  and  generous  concessions  as 
to  public  worship.  One  clause  of  the  Edict  by  which 
the  Huguenots  were  to  remain  in  control  of  several 
fortresses  proved,  however,  to  be  the  occasion  of 
future    disturbances,    because    it    gave    the    Roman 


252  MODERN  CHURCH  HISTORY 

Catholics  the  opportunity  of  making  the  objection 
to  the  Reformed  Church  that  it  was  an  autonomous 
organization,  and  therefore  anti-national. 

Scandinavia 

In  the  Scandinavian  kingdoms  royal  authority 
played  nearly  as  large  a  part  in  effecting  a  revolution 
against  the  old  church  system  as  in  England.  Fred- 
erick I  of  Denmark  (1523-33)  used  Lutheranism  as  a 
means  to  work  the  downfall  of  the  ancient  nobility 
and  the  higher  ecclesiastical  powers,  who  were  closely 
allied  togeher.  The  new  teaching  was  first  tolerated 
and  then  made  supreme.  Roman  Catholics  were  out- 
lawed when  Christian  III  came  to  the  throne  in  1536; 
Norway  and  Iceland,  both  dependencies  on  the  Dan- 
ish Kingdom,  soon  afterwards  followed  the  precedent 
set  by  their  rulers.  Sweden,  though  it  became  inde- 
pendent of  Denmark  under  Gustavus  Vasa  (1521), 
adopted  a  like  policy  in  its  church  order.  Later  on 
Vasa's  son,  Erich  XIV  (1560-68),  made  an  attempt  to 
calvinize  the  Swedish  Church  but  failed.  Another 
son,  John  III  (1568-92),  was  equally  unsuccessful  in 
restoring  communion  with  the  Roman  See.  Further 
efforts  at  the  close  of  the  century  had  no  more  suc- 
cess. Sweden  definitely  accepted  Lutheranism  with 
a  unanimity  of  popular  approval  that  still  gives  it,  so 
far  as  religious  conformity  to  one  confession  is  con- 
cerned, a  unique  position  in  western  Europe.  Exten- 
sive victories  of  the  Lutheran  revolt  against  the 
Roman  supremacy  are  to  be  recorded  in  the  duchy  of 


THE  PERIOD  OF  SEPARA  TION  AND  REFORM    253 

Prussia,  which  was  during  this  period  a  dependency 
of  Poland.  From  here  Lutheranism  spread  east 
along  the  lands  of  the  Baltic  Sea.  Even  in  Poland 
the  new  teaching,  both  in  its  Lutheran  and  Calvinis- 
tic  form,  took  root  and  for  a  time  toleration  was  ac- 
corded to  all  confessions.  Hungary  also  proved  a 
fruitful  ground  for  Protestant  expansion,  and  by  the 
beginning  of  the  seventeenth  century  its  position 
was  legally  acknowledged.  These  various  accessions 
of  strength  give  the  high-water  mark  of  reform,  and 
we  must  now  turn  to  trace  in  more  detail  the  fortunes 
and  internal  conditions  of  the  Latin  Church  from  the 
time  of  the  revolt  inaugurated  by  Luther. 

The  Counter-Reformation 

The  loss  of  such  a  large  section  of  Europe,  with 
the  rapid  expansion  of  Protestantism  in  countries 
where  loyalty  to  the  Roman  See  still  existed,  made 
plain  everywhere  the  need  for  reorganization  in  dis- 
cipline and  in  administration.  Hadrian  VI  (1522-23) 
expressly  acknowledged  at  the  Niirnberg  Diet  the  le- 
gitimacy of  the  demand  for  reform  and  promised  to 
call  a  general  council  to  work  out  the  details.  It  was 
hoped  that  this  programme  would  keep  many  from 
joining  Luther,  and  would  encourage  active  meas- 
ures against  his  propaganda.  None  of  these  expec- 
tations were  fulfilled.  The  pontificate  of  Hadrian  was 
soon  brought  to  an  end  by  his  death,  and  his  suc- 
cessor, Clement  VII  (1523-34),  a  typical  Florentine 
prelate   with  a  highly   developed  taste   for   political 


254  MODERN  CHURCH  HISTORY 

intrigue,  acquired  in  the  school  of  the  Medici,  con- 
trived to  make  Charles  V  his  enemy.  Rome  was  be- 
sieged and  taken  by  an  imperial  army,  in  which  Ger- 
man Protestants  and  German  Roman  Catholics  acted 
as  allies  against  the  pope's  supporters. 

All  thought  of  reform  was  abandoned  in  the  centre 
of  Latin  Christendom ;  the  mainstay  of  the  reforming 
programme  was  now  Charles  V,  who  put  such  pres- 
sure on  the  Roman  authorities  that  the  next  pope, 
Paul  III  (1534-49),  agreed  to  call  a  general  council 
to  meet  at  Mantua  in  1537.  Objections  were  made  in 
Germany  to  holding  a  council  on  Italian  soil,  and  the 
plan  of  settling  religious  differences  by  conciliar 
action  appeared  to  many  almost  hopeless.  Political 
methods  of  defence  or  expansion  were  far  more  popu- 
lar, since  they  promised  more  immediate  results. 
After  much  delay  the  papal  plan  was  realized  when  a 
Council  met  at  Trent  in  1545,  a  place  selected  be- 
cause, though  it  was  on  the  Italian  side  of  the  Alps, 
it  stood  in  imperial  territory  and  was  in  close  prox- 
imity to  Germany. 

The  location  at  Trent  was  far  from  being  acceptable 
to  the  Curia,  which  made  obstinate  efforts  to  have 
the  session  removed  to  an  Italian  town  nearer  Rome. 
It  was  finally  agreed,  after  an  outbreak  of  malignant 
fever  at  Trent,  that  the  removal  should  be  made  to 
Bologna;  this  was  resisted  because  the  city  was  an 
appanage  of  the  pope.  The  Spanish  members  of  the 
Council  protested  and  the  emperor  prevented  the 
transfer,  but  it  was  not  until  1551,  after  Julius  III 


THE  PERIOD  OF  SEPARA  TION  AND  REFORM    255 

(1550-55)  had  become  pope,  that  its  sessions  were  re- 
sumed at  Trent.  A  further  interruption  occurred  the 
next  year  when  Moritz  of  Saxony  at  the  head  of  an 
anti-imperial  army  penetrated  as  far  south  as  the 
Tyrol.  The  next  pope,  Paul  IV  (1555-59),  who  was 
strongly  anti-Hapsburg  and  pro-Italian,  had  no  in- 
tention of  reviving  the  Tridentine  assembly.  Its  final 
resuscitation  took  place  as  late  as  1562,  under  the 
ponntificate  of  Pius  IV  (1559-65),  and  the  sessions 
ended  two  years  before  the  pope's  death. 

Troubled  by  outside  opposition,  the  experience  of 
the  Council  itself  was  anything  but  calm  and  regular. 
The  members  debated  a  long  time  as  to  what  questions 
they  should  take  up  and  where  they  should  begin. 
Curial  interests  were  directly  involved  in  the  pro- 
posals as  to  reform,  and  therefore  every  effort  was 
made  to  keep  such  questions  from  being  debated  at 
all  by  the  Council,  because  the  central  governing  ma- 
chinery of  the  Church  might  be  affected.  Without 
harmony  on  this  subject  no  far-reaching  plans  could 
be  developed  of  the  kind  actually  needed  to  remedy 
abuses.  Cardinal  Marone,  the  president  of  the  Coun- 
cil, in  his  final  speech  confessed  that  dissatisfaction 
on  this  head  was  legitimate.  Yet  in  spite  of  the  fail- 
ure to  accomplish  results  on  a  large  scale,  some  useful 
measures  were  passed.  The  formal  selling  of  indul- 
gences, ecclesiastical  '^provisions"  and  "expectan- 
cies" were  abolished;  also  the  mediaeval  custom  of 
pledging  children  to  the  monastic  life,  the  age  of  pro- 
fession now  being  raised  to  the  age  of  sixteen  for  boys 


256  MODERN  CHURCH  HISTOR  Y 

and  twelve  for  girls.  Clandestine  marriages  were 
prohibited,  and  church  marriages  could  only  be  con- 
tracted with  the  presence  of  the  priest  and  before 
two  or  three  witnesses.  A  number  of  superstitious 
practices  connected  with  public  worship  were  dropped, 
a  new  edition  of  the  Roman  Mass  ordered,  and  a  Con- 
gregation of  Rites  appointed  to  regulate  all  ques- 
tions of  public  worship. 

Another  important  change  of  widespread  influence 
was  due  to  the  decree  by  which  every  diocese  was 
directed  to  provide  a  special  seminary  for  the  educa- 
tion of  the  priesthood.  In  many  cases  the  Tridentine 
canons  renewed  certain  disciplinary  measures,  which 
in  the  course  of  time  had  been  laxly  administered.  It 
began  to  be  seen  that  the  old  situation  could  not  be 
continued  without  peril;  accordingly  a  new  spirit  of 
rigorism  was  introduced;  for  example,  the  passing  of 
an  examination  before  the  properly  constituted  author- 
ities was  made  a  condition  of  the  induction  of  a  priest 
into  a  parochial  cure.  Attempts  were  made  to  secure 
permission  for  clerical  marriage  by  the  Emperor  Fer- 
dinand and  the  Duke  of  Bavaria,  but  without  success. 
In  regard  to  communion  in  both  kinds,  a  compromise 
measure  was  promulgated  in  a  papal  brief  after  the 
close  of  the  Council  by  which,  for  a  fixed  number  of 
years,  the  administration  of  the  chalice  was  allowed 
in  certain  cases. 

Doctrinally  the  work  of  the  Council  gave  to  the 
Roman  Church  the  same  hard,  precise  line  of  dog- 
matic statement   already  found   in  the    various  con- 


THE  PERIOD  OF  SEPARA  TION  AND  REFORM     257 

tinental  Confessions,  the  effort  being  to  differentiate 
in  every  respect  the  old  faith  from  the  new.  Practi- 
cally the  Council  was  a  success  from  the  point  of  view 
of  those  who  desired  the  Roman  Church  to  consolidate 
its  strength  in  the  face  of  the  enemy.  No  quarter  to 
those  not  children  of  the  Church  was  from  now  on  the 
watchword  of  strict  Roman  Catholics.  The  Church 
was  placed  under  martial  law  and  this  great  historic 
communion  entered  a  new  phase,  aptly  discribed  by 
Wilfrid  Ward  as  a  "State  of  Siege." 

Valiant  work  was  done  in  securing  this  result  by 
the  Society  of  Jesus,  a  community  founded  in  1534  by 
a  Spaniard,  Ignatius  Loyola,  who  drew  round  him  six 
companions,  all  earnest  in  the  purpose  of  converting 
the  Moslem  population  of  the  Holy  Land;  and  if  this 
were  not  to  be  found  practicable,  the  whole  body 
agreed  to  accept  the  direction  of  the  pope  and  under- 
take any  work  he  saw  fit  to  appoint.  A  plan  em- 
bracing pastoral  work,  preaching,  religious  instruc- 
tion for  the  young,  foreign  missionary  work,  secured 
papal  approval  in  1540.  The  new  Society  of  Jesus, 
as  it  was  called,  grew  rapidly;  by  the  time  of  its 
founder's  death  in  1556  it  numbered  1,000  members, 
spread  throughout  Europe,  and  was  engaging  with 
great  zeal  and  a  remarkably  perfected  organization  in 
parochial  and  more  especially  educational  activities. 
The  Jesuits  proved  most  successful  in  acting  as  a 
bulwark  in  preventing  further  defections  to  Protes- 
tantism and  even  in  winning  converts  in  considerable 
numbers  from  all  the  communions  which  had  taken 


258  xMODERN  CHURCH  HISTORY 

part  in  the  revolt  against  the  Roman  See.  The  ad- 
ministration of  higher  education  in  Roman  Catholic 
countries  fell  almost  exclusively  into  Jesuit  hands. 
Ignatius  himself  founded,  in  1551  in  Rome,  the  Col- 
legium Romantmt^  where  the  official  teaching  of  the 
Roman  Church  in  theology  and  philosophy  was  con- 
centrated and  expounded  under  the  Society's  aus- 
pices. 

Although  not  so  important  or  spectacular  in  their 
achievements  as  the  Jesuits,  other  new  religious  com- 
munities arose  during  the  sixteenth  century,  which 
proved  the  presence  in  the  Latin  Chruch  of  a  serious 
desire  to  meet  new  spiritual  aspirations,  individual 
and  social.  Specially  to  be  noted  are  the  Thea- 
tines,  founded  shortly  after  the  Lutheran  revolt  by 
Cardinal  Cajetan  of  Thiene  and  Bishop  Caraffa  of 
Theate  and  the  Capucines,  intended  to  restore  the 
original  Franciscan  intention;  these  last  became  a 
separate  order  in  1619.  Interesting,  too,  was  the  foun- 
dation by  Philip  Neri,  at  Rome  in  1564,  of  the  Orato- 
rians,  who  were  governed  by  simple  rule  of  life  under 
which  the  free  play  of  individuality  was  provided  for 
and  encouraged.  Various  new  organizations,  such  as 
the  Fathers  of  Christian  Teaching,  and  the  Pietists, 
devoted  themselves  to  educational  work,  while  the 
care  of  the  sick,  the  poor  and  orphans  was  undertaken 
by  the  Ursulines,  the  Brothers  of  Mercy,  and  the 
Somaskists. 


THE  PERIOD  OF  SEPARA  TION  AND  REFORM     259 


^  V  The  Anabaptists 

The  complications  and  cross-currents,— political, 
theological  and  moral,— of  the  age  of  religious  revolu- 
tion are  by  no  means  exhausted  when  one  has  cata- 
logued the  various  official  organisms  under  which  na- 
tionalities or  groups  within  the  nation  reached  a  doc- 
trinal formulation  and  became  an  ecclesiastical  estab- 
lishment sanctioned  by  the  State.    The  picture  of  this 
period  of  transition  is  not  complete  without  a  sketch 
of  the  Anabaptists,  who  may  be  regarded  as  the  en- 
fants  terribles  of  the  Reformation.     From  the  general 
principles  accepted  by  the  great  national  or  interna- 
tional champions  of  reform,  the  authority  and  organ- 
izing power  in  the  Church  come  from  the  Holy  Scrip- 
tures alone.     The  escape  from  pure  subjectivism  or 
individualism  was  made  by  insisting  that  the  inter- 
pretation of  the  Bible  should  be  by  authoritative  exe- 
gesis under  the  supervision  of  regularly  trained  teach- 
ers or  officials,  who  themselves  had  to  be  guided  by 
elaborate  formularies  drawn  up  with  technical  exact- 
ness.    This  arrangement  did  not  appeal  to  many  who 
found  in  the  Bible  a  good  deal  which  they  could  not 
discover  in  the  official  teaching  of  any  existing  relig- 
ious organization;  others,  too,  believed  in  the  free- 
dom of  an  enlightened  believer  to  cultivate  spheres  of 
religious  consciousness   not  directly  provided  for  in 
the   Scriptures.     State   recognition   of   religion  was 
also  felt   to   be   an    unworthy  compromise  with   the 
powers  of  evil,  or  in  any  case  a  sharp  differentiation 


260  MODERN  CHURCH  HISTORY 

was  made  between  the  law  of  nature  and  the  state 
of  grace. 

The  desire  for  free  religious  expression,  the  feeling 
that  the  new  pastors  were  as  closely  allied  with  the 
middle  and  upper  classes  as  the  old  priesthood,  and 
an  ill-defined  but  strongly  felt  demand  for  better  so- 
cial conditions  gave  rise  to  the  Anabaptist  movement. 
Its  chief  traits  were  early  manifested  in  the  enthusi- 
astic belief  in  the  inner  light  of  subjective  illumina- 
tion, separation  from  the  State,  the  profession  of 
brotherly  love,  a  passive  attitude  in  the  face  of  perse- 
cution and  hatred  of  the  secular  power.  Their  sym- 
bol of  divergence  was  the  practice  of  late  baptism,  or 
more  exactly,  since  they  rejected  the  custom  of  infant 
baptism,  the  re-baptizing  of  those  who  had  received 
infant  baptism.  Luther  took  from  the  first  an  un- 
compromising attitude;  Zwingli  tried  compromise 
and  then,  after  experiencing  the  Anabaptist  stub- 
born temper,  was  willing  to  appeal  to  force.  Soon, 
when  the  propaganda  proved  its  attractiveness  for  the 
masses  in  many  west  European  countries,  the  Ana- 
baptists, in  spite  of  their  protest  as  to  their  inoffen- 
siveness,  were  treated  as  outlaws  and  unmercifully 
persecuted  by  Roman  Catholics,  Lutherans  and  Zwin- 
glians. 

Under  the  stress  of  misfortune,  numbers  of  Ana- 
abaptists  turned  to  the  consoling  hope  of  a  shortly-to- 
be-realized  coming  of  God's  earthly  kingdom,  and, 
abandoning  the  doctrine  of  non-resistance,  adopted 
the  theory  that  there  was  imposed   upon  them   the 


THE  PERIOD  OF  SEPARA  TION  AND  REFORM    261 

duty  of  using  the  sword  to  root  out  the  ungodly. 
These  ideas  were  incorporated  by  Hoffmann  and 
Bockelson  in  the  short-lived  theocracy  set  up  at 
Miinster,  where  the  fantastic  side  of  Anabaptism 
culminated  in  deeds  of  lawless  violence  and  excess 
that  were  avenged  with  a  ruthless  temper  when 
Miinster  was  besieged  in  1535  and  taken  by  the 
confederated  princes  of  the  neighborhood,  who  laid 
aside  their  religious  differences  to  act  against  a  com- 
mon foe. 

After  this  catastrophe  the  quietistic  group  of  Ana- 
baptists got  the  upper  hand  under  the  direction  of 
Menno  Simons  (d.  1559).  It  became  a  mystical,  in- 
offensive system  of  lay  religion,  stressing  separation 
from  the  world  in  dress  and  social  customs,  and  in 
this  form  it  founded  communities  in  Germany,  Hol- 
land, England,  America  and  France.  Some  of  these, 
taking  on  a  more  liberal  cast,  came  in  contact  with 
English  Independents  and  with  groups  of  anti-Trini- 
tarians in  other  countries. 

Interesting  speculative  thought,  which  in  many 
ways  anticipates  the  tendencies  of  the  modern  re- 
ligious consciousness,  is  associated  with  the  names 
of  Anabaptist  teachers  such  as  Denk,  Hsetzer, 
Schoenfeld,  and,  most  of  all,  Jacob  Bohme,  who 
built  up  a  strikingly  original  metaphysical  system 
of  dualism,  taking  as  his  initial  principle  the  accept- 
ance of  the  inner  light.  More  conspicuous  even 
were  the  services  rendered  by  Anabaptism  to  the 
recognition  of   the   right  of  toleration.     It   is   easy 


262  MODERN  CHURCH  HISTORY 


to  see  how  with  their  exclusive  emphasis  on  sub- 
jectivism, they  insisted  that  the  State  should  keep 
from  interfering  with  personal  feelings  and  con- 
science and  was  bound  to  allow  groups  of  individuals 
as  they  saw  fit,  without  control  from  without,  to  or- 
ganize religious  communities. 


VII. 

DIVIDED  CHRISTENDOM  IN 
MODERN  TIMES 

FROM  the  era  of   religious  revolution   onwards, 
the  history  of  Western  Christendom  falls  into 
four  great  groups,  a  result  of  the  fact  that  the  main 
religious  divisions  of  the  sixteenth  century  tended,  as 
time  went  on,  to  grow  into  four  closed  systems,  mu- 
tually exclusive,— Anglicanism,  Calvinism,   Luther- 
anism  and  Romanism.    The  first  three  were  en  rap- 
port solely   on   the   basis  of   a  common  antagonism 
to  the  newly  invigorated  Roman  Communion, — itself, 
through  its  strict  Tridentine  orthodoxy  and  discipline 
as  well  as  by  the  transformations  introduced  by  the 
Society  of  Jesus,  practically  as  much  a  product  of  the 
age  of  Reform  as  the  three  communions  of  revolt, 
which   have   often   appeared    to   justify  their   exist- 
ence simply  because  of  their  opposition  to  a  Latin- 
ized   Christianity   dominated    by  curial   absolutism. 
Probably  without  the  divergencies  arising  from  na- 
tional policy  and  temperamental  differences  the  four 
great  groups  of  separated  Western  Christians,  so  far 
as  their  doctrinal  declarations  are  concerned,  would 
not   find  themselves  far   enough  removed   from   one 
another  to   make   mutual   attack   and   recrimination 
their  most  conspicuous  platform. 


264  MODERN  CHURCH  HISTORY 

The  Anglican  Church 

The  Anglican  Church  came  to  adopt  a  more  def- 
inite and  clear-cut  distinction  from  the  direct  off- 
springs of  anti-papal  revolt.  As  time  went  on  the  hap- 
penings of  the  English  Reformation  were  appreci- 
ated in  a  juster  perspective;  insular  self-consciousness 
tended  by  itself  to  stress  the  conservative  factors  in 
English  religious  life  as  against  the  radical  changes 
found  elsewhere.  The  episcopate,  remaining  intact, 
was  valued  first  practically  and,  later,  on  the  grounds 
of  historic  continuity,  as  was  shown  by  the  expressed 
declaration  on  the  part  of  various  Anglican  leaders,  of 
a  belief  in  the  doctrine  of  Apostolic  Succession.  Nor 
does  the  episcopate  stand  alone  as  an  evidence  of  the 
desire  to  preserve  carefully  the  old  through  times  of 
crisis  and  change.  In  the  whole  organization  of  the 
Church  one  can  note  the  care  taken  to  maintain  the 
indelible  character  of  the  priestly  office,  while  such 
acts  as  the  retention  of  the  bishops  in  the  House  of 
Lords,  the  preservation  of  ecclesiastical  courts,  the 
inviolability  conceded  to  the  propertied  possessions  of 
the  Church,  are  so  many  cumulative  proofs  of  the 
unwillingness  of  Englishmen  to  break  with  the  medi- 
aeval Church  except  on  points  where  there  was  judged 
to  be  a  real  conflict  with  the  claims  of  national  au- 
tonomy and  primitive  tradition. 

The  opposition  already  described  as  coming  from 
both  Roman  Catholics  and  Puritans  against  the  Na- 
tional  Church   continued  after  the  accession  of  the 


DIVIDED  CHRISTENDOM  IN  MODERN  TIMES     265 

Stuarts.  An  attempt  was  made  under  James  I  to  se- 
cure a  modus  vivendi  by  a  conference,  but  the  forces 
of  separatism  were  too  strong,  especially  as  the  cleav- 
age became  associated  with  strongly  drawn  lines  on 
constitutional  questions.  The  Anglican  leaders  allied 
themselves  with  the  advocates  of  monarchical  abso- 
lutism, while  the  supporters  of  Geneva  doctrine  and 
discipline  were  closely  associated  with  the  party 
which  maintained  the  sovereignty  of  Parliament.  The 
contrast  between  the  two  systems  became  clearly 
marked  in  James  I's  reign  in  theory  and  practice. 
Bishop  Andrewes  presented  the  developed  type  of 
Anglican  churchmanship,  which  had  moved  far  away 
in  theology  and  in  ceremonial  customs  from  the  Pur- 
itan model. 

In  the  generation  immediately  following  Andrewes, 
Archbishop  Laud  applied  with  a  vigorous  spirit  in  his 
administration  the  claim  that  the  English  Church 
stood  for  a  revival  under  a  national  form  of  the  ac- 
cepted standards  of  Catholic  antiquity.  A  friend  of 
learning  himself,  and  in  his  doctrinal  position  a  cham- 
pion of  toleration,  he  contrived  by  his  support  of  the 
royal  prerogative  in  his  contest  with  Puritanism  to 
ride  roughshod  over  those  who  failed  to  follow  him 
and  subjected  his  opponents  to  merciless  and  unsym- 
pathetic treatment.  The  irritating  discipline  exer- 
cized by  Laud  helped  to  make  the  Church  odious  in 
the  eyes  of  many  able  and  sane-minded  patriots,  who 
detested  the  weak  and  vacillating  government  of  the 
Stuarts.     The  alliance  of  the  Laudian  Church,  with 


266  MODERN  CHURCH  HISTORY 

an  inefficient  and  unsuccessful  executive  power, 
brought  a  common  ruin  to  both.  Accordingly,  when 
the  Long  Parliment  met  in  1640  its  successful  meas- 
ures in  dealing  with  the  exercise  of  royal  prerogative 
were  coupled  with  an  unrelenting  attack  on  the  Laud- 
ian  system.  The  Archbishop  himself  perished  a  not- 
unwilling  martyr  to  his  convictions;  and  however  one 
may  condemn  the  errors  of  judgment  and  temper 
which  may  easily  be  brought  against  Laud,  there  can 
be  no  doubt  that  Ranke's  estimate  of  him  as  a  great 
ecclesiastical  statesman  will  stand ;  nor  is  further  in- 
vestigation likely  to  alter  the  force  of  the  measured 
words  of  Gladstone  describing  his  achievements, 
when  he  spoke  of  him  as  the  man  who  prevented  the 
English  Church  from  being  bound  in  the  fetters  of  an 
iron  system  of  compulsory  Calvinistic  belief. 

Yet  the  significance  of  his  work  was  not  immedi- 
ately visible,  because  the  victory  of  the  parliamentary 
party  gave  the  Calvinistic  church  system  a  position 
which  seemed  unassailable.  The  Anglican  Church 
that  appeared  to  be  merely  the  weaker  partner  of  the 
Stuart  monarchy  gave  place  to  an  ecclesiastical  es- 
tablishment modelled  after  Presbyterian  standards. 
It  was  soon  seen,  however,  that  the  theocratic  tenden- 
cies of  Calvinism  would  be  resented  in  England.  The 
exercise  of  discipline  remained  in  the  hands  of  Par- 
liament and  was  not  entrusted  to  the  usual  organs  of 
church  administration.  This  violation  of  the  strict 
principles  of  Scotch  Presbyterianism  made  it  easy  for 
Cromwell  to  introduce  the  practice  of  a  fairly  wide 


DIVIDED  CHRISTENDOM  IN  MODERN  TIMES     267 

system  of  toleration,  under  which  Independency  or 
Congregationalism  virtually  became  the  recognized 
method  of  church  government.  All  Christians,  as  a 
matter  of  fact,  except  Romanists,  Anglican  and  Anti- 
nomians,  were  protected  in  the  exercise  of  their  relig- 
ion. Strict  measures  were  meted  out  to  the  Angli- 
can clergy,  who  as  royalists  were  regarded  as  enemies 
of  the  State.  Using  the  Prayer  Book  was  a  penal  of- 
fence; and  many,  under  this  rigorous  rule,  were 
obliged  to  seek  refuge  abroad. 

A  new  era  was  ushered  in  by  the  Stuart  restoration; 
the  episcopate  resumed  without  difficulty  the  control 
of  the  dioceses;  church  property  was  returned  and 
many  of  the  parish  clergy  were  brought  back  to  the 
benefices  from  which  they  had  been  ejected  under 
Cromwell's  rule.  The  question  of  the  treatment  of 
other  ecclesiastical  organizations  became  a  vexed 
problem.  The  Restoration  had  been  ushered  in  with 
a  promise  of  liberty  of  conscience  for  all  who  would 
peaceably  submit  to  the  change  of  government.  Un- 
fortunately this  programme  was  not  carried  out;  the 
oppression  of  the  old  regime  had  left  many  rankling 
sores  behind.  The  Puritan  party  was  divided  into 
two  great  groups,— the  Presbyterians  and  Indepen- 
dents,—  not  to  mention  smaller  organizations.  There 
was  a  popular  demand  for  a  revival  of  the  traditional 
monarchical  policy  of  religious  uniformity,  and  the 
question  was  how  to  secure  it.  A  conference  was 
held  at  the  Savoy  in  London  (1661)  to  settle  this  mat- 
ter, and  it  ended  in  showing  that  there  was  no  prac- 


268  MODERN  CHURCH  HISTORY 

ticable  common  ground  between  Anglican  and  Pur- 
itan, and  so  no  basis  of  uniformity.  In  doctrine  and 
in  ceremonial  practice  the  two  were  far  apart,  and 
when  the  decision  had  to  be  made  as  to  which  system 
was  to  be  the  sole  recognized  legal  establishment, 
the  Anglican  Church,  with  its  Prayer  Book  revised  in 
many  details  in  an  anti-Puritan  direction,  attained 
an  exclusively  priviledged  parliamentary  position  by  a 
new  Act  of  Uniformity  (1662).  Two  thousand  Pres- 
byterian and  Independent  ministers,  finding  them- 
selves unable  to  conform,  organized  bodies  of  Protes- 
tant Non-conformists,  the  first  ofificial  creations  of 
this  type  of  Dissenters. 

The  rest  of  the  Stuart  period  is  marked  by  an 
almost  continuous  contest  for  the  recognition  of 
religious  toleration.  Severe  legislation  was  passed 
against  all  bodies  outside  the  National  Church,  by 
which  not  only  was  the  practice  of  their  religion 
interfered  with,  but  even  the  civil  status  of  their 
members  affected.  While  these  rigid  rules  were  due 
to  parliamentary  statute,  the  cause  of  toleration  was 
not  helped  by  its  advocacy  on  the  part  of  the  royal 
executive  or  by  the  methods  used  by  Charles  II  and 
his  brother  James  II,  both  under  Roman  Catholic 
influence,  to  override  through  the  exercise  of  the  royal 
prerogative  the  law  of  the  land.  A  crisis  was  reached 
when  James  II  tried  with  diplomatic  and  devious 
means  to  repeat  the  experiment  made  by  Queen 
Mary,  a  century  before,  of  bringing  the  National 
Church  into  communion  with  the  Roman  See.     His 


DIVIDED  CHRISTENDOM  IN  MODERN  TIMES    269 

policy  led  directly  to  the  revolution  of  1688  under 
which  the  Stuart  family  were  expatriated  and  a 
purely  constitutional  system  was  introduced. 

With  this  change  a  Toleration  Act  was  enacted, 
which  gave  freedom  of  worship  to  all  Protestant 
Trinitarian  Non-conformists.  Certain  prerogative 
rights  were  maintained  in  favor  of  the  doctrine  and 
practice  of  the  Anglican  Church,  though  the  parlia- 
mentary support  it  secured  at  this  time  was  of  most 
questionable  utility.  The  Caroline  period  is  famous 
as  a  time  of  religious  revival ;  and  the  Church  and  its 
services  became  firmly  fixed  in  the  hearts  of  the  peo- 
ple. Among  the  clergy  were  many  men  of  exalted 
character  and  unusual  learning.  Fixed  as  was  the  de- 
marcation between  the  Anglicans  and  Non-conform- 
ists, the  National  Church  itself  was  far  from  being 
harmoniously  circumstanced.  In  its  own  members 
one  can  notice  the  cleavages  of  parties,  the  High 
Churchmen  on  one  side  and  the  Latitudinarians  on 
the  other,  and  in  both  groups  doctrinal  differences 
were  accentuated  by  political  affiliations  with  the 
historic  divisions  between  the  Tory  and  Whigs.  Some 
High  Churchmen  still  held  so  tenaciously  to  the 
principle  of  royal  prerogative  and  right  that  they 
refused  to  take  the  oath  of  allegiance  to  William  HI. 
These  so-called  Non-Jurors  organized  a  schism  which 
continued  to  exist  until  the  beginning  of  the  nine- 
teenth century. 

The  identification  of  political  partisanship  with  the 
support  of  the  National  Church  as  it  showed  itself  in 


270  MODERN  CHURCH  HISTORY 

the  reigns  of  William  III  and  his  sister-in-law,  Queen 
Anne,  especially  in  the  antagonism  between  the  lower 
house  of  Convocation,  which  was  Tory,  and  the  upper 
house  composed  of  bishops,  who  were  almost  alto- 
gether Whig,  was  but  the  introduction  to  a  period 
of  reaction  and  apathy  by  which  the  Georgian  epoch 
was  distinguished.  It  was  the  uniform  policy  of  the 
first  two  Hanoverians  to  encourage  the  Latitudinarian 
party  by  official  promotion  and  patronage.  Convoca- 
tion was  suppressed  because  of  its  known  sympathies 
with  the  party  which  regretted  the  downfall  of  the 
Stuarts.  Under  the  repressive  ecclesiastical  system 
by  which  Whig  ascendancy  was  secured,  the  Church 
became  hardly  more  than  a  branch  of  governmental 
administration.  This  result  is  conspicuous  in  the  con- 
duct of  the  Georgian  bishops,  who  as  a  rule  paid  little 
attention  to  their  dioceses,  and  satisfied  themselves  by 
living  lives  of  leisure  under  the  conditions  of  affluence 
common  to  the  country  gentry  of  their  time.  The 
age  was  one  of  conventionality  and  respectability, 
and  everywhere  throughout  all  religious  communions 
acquiescence  in  existing  standards  was  the  accepted 
rule.  In  religion  reason  in  its  common-sense  form 
was  taken  as  the  supreme  court  of  appeal;  nothing 
was  so  much  dreaded  or  suspected  as  the  introduc- 
tion of  appeals  to  the  emotional  side  of  man's  nature. 
Little  was  done  to  satisfy  the  religious  needs  of  a 
new  type  of  population  brought  into  existence  by  the 
great  industrial  advance  made  by  England  during  the 
Georgian  Age.     In  a  time  ripe  for  change  and  relig- 


DIVIDED  CHRISTENDOM  IN  MODERN  TIMES     271 

ious  reform  it  was  the  misfortune  of  the  Anglican 
Church  that,  through  the  rigidity  of  its  administra- 
tion and  the  short-sightedness  of  its  official  class, 
that  the  great  career  of  John  Wesley  produced  its 
remarkable  results  outside  the  communion  of  which 
he  was  a  member.  The  principles  he  adopted  were 
in  the  sharpest  contrast  to  all  that  the  Georgian 
Church  held  to  as  its  chief  support.  Wesley  went 
out  among  the  neglected  masses  whom  the  parish  sys- 
tem could  not  touch,  and  by  the  sincerity  of  his  lan- 
guage and  the  directness  of  his  appeal  brought  home 
to  them  with  unequalled  force  the  message  of  God's 
love.  But  oratorical  power  and  energy  in  conversion 
of  souls  did  not  exhaust  the  capacity  of  this  great 
leader.  His  talents  as  an  organizer  were  remarkable; 
in  a  short  time  he  extended  systematically  in  care- 
fully constructed  detail  the  new  society  of  which  he 
was  the  head  and  director.  As  time  went  on  the  sep- 
aration between  the  new  organization  and  the  Church 
became  more  defined.  Though  W^esley  himself, 
with  obvious  sincerity,  protested  that  his  followers 
were  to  work  inside  and  not  without  the  Church  of 
England,  he  took  no  care  in  guiding  his  society  to  see 
that  the  standard  of  loyalty  felt  by  himself  should  be 
imposed  upon  others.  As  early  as  1744  the  first 
Wesleyan  Conference  plainly  affirmed  that  "while 
they  did  not  desire  a  schism  in  the  Church,  they 
must  not  neglect  the  present  opportunity  of  saving 
souls  for  fear  of  consequences."  By  1760  the  Holy 
Communion  was  administered  by  lay  preachers,  and 


272  MODERN  CHURCH  HISTORY 

in  1784  Wesley,  apparently  without  realizing  the  con- 
sequences of  his  acts,  set  apart  in  a  formal  religious 
service,  as  bishops,  two  members  of  his  society  to 
oversee  the  Wesleyan  propaganda  in  America. 

The  influence  of  the  Wesleyan  movement  on  Angli- 
cans could  hardly  remain  for  long  merely  in  the  form 
of  opposition.  Wesley's  strong  personality  worked 
on  men  who  differed  from  him  both  in  his  views  on 
theology  and  as  to  his  policy  towards  the  National 
Church.  From  this  group,  who  held  a  modified  Cal- 
vinistic  system  and  stressed  the  subjective  element  in 
religion,  came  the  modern  Low  Church,  or  more  accu- 
rately speaking  the  Evangelical  party,  which  domi- 
nated for  a  great  part  of  a  century  the  Church  of  Eng- 
land. Such  men  as  Fletcher,  Venn,  Romaine  and 
Newton,  though  without  creative  intellectual  power, 
brought  the  influence  of  personal  religion  to  bear  in 
crowded  centres  of  population  and  in  remote  country 
districts.  The  lethargy  of  the  Georgian  Age  was 
overcome,  and  subjective  as  was  the  teaching  of 
Evangelicalism,  it  produced  a  quickening  of  the  na- 
tional conscience  that  showed  itself  in  splendid  meas- 
ures of  reform,  such  as  the  abolition  of  the  slave  trade 
and  the  improvement  of  conditions  of  prisons. 

When  raised,  however,  to  official  leadership,  defects 
of  organizing  capacity  on  the  part  of  the  Evangelicals 
made  it  impossible  for  them  to  appreciate  the  corpo- 
rate life  of  the  Church,  and  it  was  this  task  which  came 
to  be  the  heritage  of  the  champions  of  the  new  reli- 
gious revival  of  the  nineteenth  century  which  is  known 


DIVIDED  CHRISTENDOM  IN  MODERN  TIMES    273 

as  the  Oxford  Movement.  This  movement  took  its 
inception  from  the  crisis  brought  about  by  the  Reform 
Act  of  1832,  when  statesmen  who  aimed  to  do  away 
with  the  political  abuses  for  which  an  oligarchy,  long 
continued  in  power,  had  made  themselves  responsible, 
were  about  to  treat  the  Church  as  a  branch  of  govern- 
mental administration  which  required  most  drastic 
remedies  to  bring  it  up  to  the  new  ideals  of  efficiency. 
Under  the  guidance  of  the  celebrated  Rugby  educa- 
tor, Dr.  Arnold,  who  thoroughly  believed  in  the  valid- 
ity of  the  religious  conciousness  but  had  little  sym- 
pathy with  its  historic  forms,  a  scheme  was  worked 
out  by  which  the  past  was  to  be  broken  with  and  for 
the  inherited  system  of  the  Church  was  to  be  substi- 
tuted a  comprehensive  arrangement,  according  to 
which  the  government  was  to  bring  together  under 
one  fold  all  men  who  were  willing  to  accept  certain 
vaguely  defined  expressions  of  Christian  doctrine. 
This  proposed  interference  of  the  State,  as  well  as 
the  intangibility  of  Dr.  Arnold's  doctrinal  position, 
brought  about  the  genesis  of  an  opposition  led  almost 
entirely  by  men  trained  at  the  University  of  Oxford. 
As  the  bishops  and  officials  of  the  Church  showed 
little  consciousness  of  the  need  of  leadership  in  this 
epoch  of  change,  a  series  of  Tracts  were  prepared, 
intended  to  place  before  the  educated  classes  the 
sacramental  side  of  the  doctrine  and  life  of  the 
Church.  Historical  continuity  and  an  anti-individu- 
alistic theology  were  the  main  characteristics  of  these 
Tracts.  Attention  both  favorable  and  antagonistic 
19 


274  MODERN  CHURCH  HISTORY 

greeted  the  new  movement.  Its  strength  lay  in  its 
leaders,  men  of  weight  and  power  at  Oxford, —  Keble, 
Newman  and  Pusey.  Its  weakness  was  the  conviction 
that  so  great  a  cause  could  be  fought  out  and  finally 
decided  by  academic  methods.  The  lessons  taught 
by  the  Wesley  revival,  that  the  popular  imagination 
must  be  appealed  to  and  popular  needs  understood 
and  answered,  were  not  appreciated.  Newman,  with 
all  his  power  of  dialectic,  and  in  spite  of  the  depth 
and  sincerity  of  his  religious  convictions,  became  in- 
volved in  superficial  controversial  questions  concern- 
ing the  relation  of  the  English  Church  with  the  Ro- 
man Communion.  This  was  a  tactical  error,  because 
not  only  was  the  Roman  Church  numerically  weak  in 
England,  but  it  was  suspected,  on  the  basis  of  its 
history  in  the  Tudor  and  Stuart  periods,  of  a  desire 
to  attain  power  and  position  by  methods  of  indirection 
and  intrigue.  Suspicions  of  this  type  were  exagger- 
ated, of  course,  but  their  presence  in  the  mind  of 
many  people  was  sufficient  to  bring  the  Tractarian 
teaching  into  obloquy  as  disloyal  and  novel. 

The  storm  broke  when  Newman  published  Tract 
XC,  which  was  wrongly  understood  to  advocate  a 
Roman  Catholic  interpretation  of  the  Anglican  Arti- 
cles. As  Newman's  method  was  appropriate  only  to  a 
treatise  on  the  history  of  dogma,  it  is  not  surprising 
that  the  exact  significance  of  the  tract  was  altogether 
lost  in  the  heat  of  polemical  discussion.  Some  of 
Newman's  disciples  who  did  not  share  his  disciplined 
intellectual  powers  became  outspoken  in  their  admi- 


DIVIDED  CHRISTENDOM  IN  MODERN  TIMES     275 

ration  for  all  that  was  Roman,  and  spoke  contemptu- 
ously of  the  Church  to  which  they  belonged.  In  the 
atmosphere  of  excitement  the  unwise  and  unre- 
strained speech  of  the  younger  Tractarians  stirred  the 
university  authorities,  who  were  men  fitted  only  and 
chosen  chiefly  to  direct  routine  academic  life  in  the 
quiet,  humdrum  life  of  an  ancient  university,  to 
unwise  and  tyrannical  action.  Newman,  who  had 
been  for  some  time  dissatisfied  with  his  theory  of 
the  Via  Media,  which  made  the  Anglican  Church  fill 
the  place  of  the  **just  mean"  between  Romanism  and 
Anglicanism,  despaired  of  finding  in  it  a  place  for 
the  consistency  of  faith  and  the  continuity  of  cath- 
olic life  which  he  sought.  He  and  many  others  —  lay- 
men as  well  as  the  clergy —  seceded  to  Rome,  a  defec- 
tion which  deprived  the  Tractarians  of  many  of  their 
ablest  members. 

But  the  catastrophe  was  not  irreparable,  because 
some  who  had  stood  closest  to  Newman  from  the 
beginning  of  the  movement  now  refused  to  follow 
him.  Keble  and  Pusey  adhered  to  a  strict  mainte- 
nance of  the  principles  set  forth  in  the  Tracts,  and 
the  Oxford  Movement  after  its  defeat  in  the  univer- 
sity gained  strength  elsewhere.  Higher  standards  of 
efficiency  in  the  diocese  and  in  the  parish  were  intro- 
duced. There  were  more  frequent  services,  and  due 
emphasis  was  given  to  the  central  position  of  sacra- 
mental teaching;  an  era  began  of  church  expansion 
at  home  and  abroad,  with  its  outward  manifestation 
in  the  building  of  new  curches,  the  organization  of 


276  MODERN  CHURCH  HISTOR  V 

societies,  and  the  extension  of  the  episcopate  to  the 
colonies.  It  must  not  be  forgotten  that  this  renewed 
vitality,  closely  as  it  is  connected  with  the  neo-Cath- 
olic  revival  at  Oxford,  was  non-partisan  on  the  whole 
and  non-exclusive.  The  impetus  to  energetic  devel- 
opment in  thought  and  in  action  can  be  seen  in  men 
and  groups  far  removed  from  direct  sympathy  with 
the  Tractarians.  Both  Evangelicals  and  those  who 
looked  up  to  Arnold  or  to  Maurice,  a  religious 
thinker  of  unique  power,  who  treated  from  a  philo- 
sophical standpoint  the  problems  of  the  faith,  were 
contributors  to  the  full  impetus  of  religious  revival 
and  reform. 

While  the  reserve  forces  of  the  Church  were  being 
solidly  accummulated,  ecclesiastical  life  on  the  sur- 
face was  disturbed  for  many  years  after  the  secession 
of  Newman  by  questions  involving  the  right  of  the 
state  courts  to  interfere  with  matters  of  doctrine  and 
ceremonial.  This  dilemma  was  created  by  the  pecu- 
liar relation  between  the  civil  and  ecclesiastical 
powers,  under  which  the  sovereignty  of  Parliament 
had  come  to  be  supreme  over  all  organs  of  national 
life.  In  the  nineteenth  century,  after  the  principle 
of  religious  uniformity  had  long  been  forgotten  and  the 
exercise  of  toleration  had  led  to  an  unparalleled  devel- 
opment of  sects  and  creeds,  it  was  strange  to  find  that 
Tudor  precedents  of  church  control  could  still  be 
enforced  by  civil  courts.  Lay  judges  were  seen  oracu- 
larly deciding  theological  points  with  the  same  final- 
ity as  a  Curial  Congregation,  and  as  these  decisions 


DIVIDED  CHRISTENDOM  IN  MODERN  TIMES    117 

were  criticised  or  protested  against,  a  more  deter- 
mined effort  was  made  by  parlimentary  enactment 
(the  Public  Worship  Bill)  to  prevent  the  growth  of 
ceremonial  usages  in  the  Church,  which  were  re- 
garded as  an  insidious  attempt  to  do  away  with  the 
principles  of  the  Reformation. 

The  younger  adherents  of  the  Tractarian  Party, 
who  gave  a  practical  and  popularly  understood  inter- 
pretation of  the  platform  of  the  early  leaders,  empha- 
sized the  need  of  aesthetic  appeal  in  public  worship 
and  showed  how  it  was  to  be  attained  by  the  revival 
of  historic  ceremonial  usages,  were  called  Ritualists. 
It  was  this  group  who  were  specifically  aimed  at  in 
the  repressive  statutes  passed  by  Parliament  on  ques- 
tions of  interpreting  prayer  book  rubrics,  and  several 
clergy  who  doubted  the  compentency  of  lay  courts  to 
impose  their  decisions  on  matters  of  faith  and  wor- 
ship were  willing  to  go  to  prison  rather  than  ac- 
knowledge the  exercise  of  secular  jurisdiction.  It 
began  soon  to  be  realized  that  these  attempts  to 
secure  uniformity  were  an  anachronism;  finally  the 
bishops  themselves  recognized  the  wisdom  of  discour- 
aging ritual  prosecutions.  The  great  test  case  came 
when  Bishop  King  of  Lincoln  was  brought  before  the 
the  Archbishop  of  Canterbury,  Dr.  Benson,  on  the 
charge  of  ritual  lawlessness  (1891).  It  was  found  on 
appeal  to  the  Privy  Council  that  the  insistence  on 
rigidity  had  no  longer  the  support  of  the  court  of 
highest  instance.  Practically  all  of  the  main  conten- 
tions of  the  Tractarian  School  are  now  regarded  as 


278  MODERN  CHURCH  HISTORY 

legitimate,  although  those  who  disagree  with  them 
might  still  regard  their  teaching  as  ill-advised  or 
unnecessary. 

There  has  been  a  general  decay  of  partisanship  and 
a  growing  willingness  of  groups  or  factions  of  Church- 
men to  allow  that  various  and  differing  types  of  prac- 
tice and  doctrine  may  find  in  the  Church  an  unob- 
structed expression.  Party  lines  are  much  less 
strictly  drawn  to-day  and  popular  interest  is  concen- 
trated on  greater  spheres  of  religious  energy  where 
all  can  join  together  to  promote  a  common  end.  A 
good  picture  of  the  English  Church  to-day  may  be 
seen  in  its  revived  representative  bodies,  the  two  Con- 
vocations of  Canterbury  and  York,  in  the  diocesan 
conferences,  and  in  the  multifarious  societies  for  edu- 
cational, social  or  philanthropic  purposes.  By  far  the 
two  most  contested  subjects  of  debate  in  England's 
religious  life  in  recent  years  have  been  the  question 
of  a  separate  school  system  under  church  control  and 
the  programme  of  disestablishment  under  which  the 
Church  will  lose  its  privileged  position  due  to  the 
State  connection  and  also  most  of  its  endowments. 

The  Roman  Catholic  Church 

In  following  the  progress  of  the  Roman  Catholic 
communion  from  the  beginning  of  the  seventeenth 
century,  one  finds  the  lead  in  activity  and  interest 
taken  by  the  Church  of  France.  After  the  success- 
ful obstruction  to  further  advance  of  either  Lutheran- 
ism  or  Calvinism  in  Germany  through  the  work  of  the 


DIVIDED  CHRISTENDOM  IN  MODERN  TIMES     279 

Counter-reformation,  a  period  of  confessional  bitter- 
ness followed  which  led  to  the  disastrous  Thirty 
Years'  War,  in  which  not  only  both  sides  suffered 
but  the  whole  character  of  German  life  bore  for  a 
long  time  the  imprint  of  the  destruction  wrought  by 
the  struggle.  In  contrast  France,  after  it  had  passed 
the  age  of  sectarian  strife,  displayed  in  the  field  of 
religion  wonderful  recuperative  powers.  Among  the 
French  clergy  there  were  high  standards  of  intel- 
lectual attainment  allied  with  the  cultivation  of  the 
spirit  of  devotion  and  sacrifice  for  worthy  ends. 
One  has  only  to  notice  the  services  rendered  to  eru- 
dition by  the  Benedictine  Congregation  of  St.  Maur 
and  recall  the  spiritual  fervor  of  the  members  of  the 
Society  of  Port  Royal,  not  to  mention  the  great  indi- 
vidual figures  of  Bossuet  and  Fenelon,  to  measure 
the  achievements  of  the  Church  of  France. 

For  many  years,  owing  to  the  growth  of  the  French 
monarchy,  the  question  of  how  far  the  Gallican 
Church  was  autonomous  was  vigorously  debated.  The 
proximate  occasion  of  a  contest  with  the  Roman  See 
was  the  condemnation  by  the  pope  of  a  revival  of  Au- 
gustinianism  due  to  Cornelius  Jansen,  a  Dutch  bishop, 
whose  speculations  gained  him  many  supporters  in 
France.  Later  on  the  right  of  the  monarchy  in  ad- 
ministering the  Church  was  affirmed  in  the  four  Gal- 
lican Articles,  by  which  were  maintained  a  strictly 
constitutional  theory  of  papal  government,  and  a  limi-- 
tation  on  the  pope's  right  to  come  to  a  final  decision 
on  matters  of  faith  apart  from  the  general  consent  of 


280  MODERN  CHURCH  HISTORY 


the  Church.  From  France  these  principles  passed  into 
German  lands,  where  in  the  eighteenth  century  they 
were  formulated  at  length  with  historical  addenda  by 
Bishop  von  Hontheim,  suffragan  of  Trier,  under  the 
name  of  Febronius.  Interest  and  active  sympathy 
was  felt  in  many  quarters  of  Germany  for  these  prop- 
ositions, which  tended  to  apply  the  tenets  of  constitu- 
tionalism to  the  Curia.  In  Austria,  under  the  direc- 
tion of  monarchical  paternalism,  much  was  done  by 
Joseph  II  to  deprive  the  Church  of  its  privileged 
autonomous  position  and  bring  it  under  the  super- 
vision of  a  beaureaucratic  government.  Most  signif- 
icant of  the  influence  of  the  eighteenth  century  sec- 
ular absolutism  on  the  Church  was  the  dissolution 
of  the  Jesuit  Society  that  followed  the  various  royal 
decrees  against  the  order  in  Portugal,  Spain  and 
Naples. 

The  local  history  of  the  papacy  itself  since  the 
Reformation  attests  its  decline  from  its  earlier  influ- 
ence and  importance.  The  Roman  See  no  longer  took 
the  leadership  in  international  politics;  it  was  content 
with  the  humbler  role  of  following  rather  than  direct- 
ing the  great  national  states  which  held  to  its  commun- 
ion. Even  the  concession  of  a  veto  in  papal  conclaves 
was  allowed  to  the  executives  of  France,  Spain  and 
Austria.  After  the  reforms  of  Trent  no  change  was 
made  in  curial  organization  except  that  measures 
were  taken,  with  some  good  results,  to  do  away  with 
papal  nepotism.  Temporal  rule  over  portions  of  cen- 
tral and  northeastern  Italy  was  continued,  which  in- 


DIVIDED  CHRISTENDOM  IN  MODERN  TIMES    281 

volved  the  governing  of  some  cities  of  considerable 
size  by  ecclesiastics.  Such  a  system  was  not  felt  as 
an  especial  anomaly,  and  in  the  quiet  laissez  faire 
attitude  of  the  eighteenth  century  it  looked  as  if  noth- 
ing could  happen  to  disturb  the  satisfying,  tranquil 
repose  in  a  Church  which  had  been  rudely  shaken 
two  centuries  before. 

The  era  of  revolution  disturbed  this  peaceful  atmos- 
phere, first  of  all  in  the  centre  of  upheaval.  The 
French  Church  found  itself  transformed  by  the 
changes  of  1789.  Freedom  of  conscience  and  tolera- 
tion in  public  worship  were  features  of  the  new  con- 
stitution. To  meet  the  demands  of  an  exhausted 
treasury  all  the  property  of  the  Church  was  confiscated 
and  appropriated  for  national  uses.  Religious  orders 
were  dissolved,  the  number  of  bishoprics  reduced 
from  one  hundred  and  thirty-four  to  eighty-three,  and 
along  with  this  distructive  work  the  Constituent 
Assembly  adopted  a  constructive  ecclesiastical  policy 
by  which  the  ancient  system  of  episcopal  election  by 
citizen  voters  was  introduced.  The  ties  with  the 
papacy  became  hardly  more  than  nominal  and  institu- 
tion into  the  vacant  sees  was  in  the  hands  of  the  met- 
ropolitans. This  was  the  new  Civil  Constitution  of 
the  clergy  which  caused  a  widespread  revolt.  About 
40,000  priests  preferred  to  withdraw  into  exile  rather 
than  accept  its  provisions.  Four  diocesan  bishops 
and  three  suffragans  were  alone  left  to  continue  on 
the  hierarchy.  As  the  climax  of  the  revolution  was 
reached   and    after   the   downfall   of   monarchy,    the 


282  MODERN  CHURCH  HISTORY 

extreme  revolutionists  (1793)  took  drastic  action  in 
favor  of  a  national  religion  of  Reason,  which  meant 
that  the  exercise  of  Christian  worship  was  forbidden 
for  several  years. 

The  change  to  a  period  of  political  moderation 
brought  relief.  By  1798  Christian  services  were  again 
restored  in  forty  thousand  parishes  throughout  the 
country.  Later,  when  Napoleon  Bonaparte  became 
First  Consul,  communion  with  the  Roman  See  was 
regularized  anew  by  the  Concordat  of  1801,  under 
which  instrument  the  Church  of  France  continued  to 
exist  for  over  a  century.  No  attempt  was  made  to 
return  the  property  taken  from  the  Church  in  1789, 
but  the  State,  as  a  compensation,  agreed  to  be  respon- 
sible for  all  ecclesiastics.  The  bishoprics  were  reduced 
to  sixty,  freedom  of  conscience  and  public  worship 
remained,  and  in  order  not  to  return  to  the  repressive 
ideals  of  the  old  regime  a  statement  was  made  that 
the  Roman  Church  was  the  religion  of  a  large  majority 
of  the  French  people.  As  an  appendix  to  the  Con- 
cordat, certain  Organic  Laws  were  passed  which 
considerably  restricted  the  autonomy  of  the  Church 
and  most  noticably  placed  under  government  regula- 
tion and  oversight  the  relations  of  the  Roman  See 
with  it.  AH  teachers  in  seminaries  were  required  to 
bind  themselves  to  accept  the  four  Galilean  Articles 
drawn  up  in  the  reign  of  Louis  XIV.  Decrees  of  the 
pope  and  of  foreign  synods  were  not  recognized  in 
France  without  governmental  sanction,  while  in  the 
country   itself   no  church  assemblies  could  be   held 


DIVIDED  CHRISTENDOM  IN  MODERN  TIMES     283 

unless  the  government  permitted.  When  the  Bour- 
bons were  restored  the  Napoleonic  law  continued  in 
force,  the  only  modifications  being  the  establishment 
of  a  few  bishoprics  and  the  accordance  of  a  legal  status 
to  certain  religious  orders. 

In  the  middle  of  the  nineteenth  century  steps  were 
taken  to  organize  a  voluntary  system  of  public  educa- 
tion under  religious  auspices,  first  extending  to  sec- 
ondary schools  alone,  then  in  the  Third  Republic, 
amplified  by  the  foundation  of  a  few  church  univer- 
sities with  courses  in  professional  instruction,  but 
without  the  right  to  confer  degrees.  The  general 
identification  of  the  Church  with  parties  inimical  to 
Republicanism  was  to  some  extent  responsible  for  the 
wave  of  anti-clericalism  which  has  marked  French  life 
for  more  than  a  generation.  In  the  educational  field  the 
battle  raged  bitterly,  with  the  result  that  lay  influence 
won  the  victory.  The  attention  of  the  State  was  then 
directed  to  the  religious  orders,  which  had  gained  a 
strong  economic  position  as  well  as  a  prepondering 
influence  in  religious  propaganda.  Various  restric- 
tions were  imposed  which,  as  they  were  not  accepted, 
lead  to  a  dissolution  of  various  communities  and  the 
ex-appropriation  of  their  endowments.  Finally,  when 
President  Loubet's  visit  to  Rome  was  protested 
against  by  the  Curia,  diplomatic  relations  were 
broken  off  with  Rome  and  a  Separation  Act  was 
passed  that  reduced  the  French  Church  to  a  voluntary 
organization,  under  restrictions  of  State  supervision 
and   control   which   have  been  criticised  with  some 


284  MODERN  CHURCH  HISTOR  V 

justice  as  vexatious  and  in  violation  of  modern  stan- 
dards of  religious  freedom. 

In  other  continental  countries  the  influence  of  the 
French  conquests  during  the  Revolution  and  Napole- 
onic period  made  itself  felt  in  the  existing  ecclesiastical 
order.  Many  German  sees,  whose  bishops  up  to  this 
time  had  maintained  territorial  sovereignty,  lost  their 
domains.  In  Regensburg,  in  1803,  a  resolution  was 
passed  which  provided  for  secularization  on  a  large 
scale  of  religious  foundations  and  abbeys.  Later  on 
various  new  arrangements  of  dioceses  and  provinces 
were  introduced,  and  in  many  cases  the  changes 
resulted  in  placing^  large  Roman  Catholic  populations 
under  the  sovereignty  of  Protestant  rulers.  Strife 
arose  in  several  districts  over  the  question  of  mixed 
marriage  where  the  application  of  the  state  law  led 
to  unavailing  protests  from  the  church  authorities. 
In  Prussia  in  the  "thirties"  both  Prussian  Roman 
Catholic  archbishops, —  the  one  of  Cologne  and  the 
other  of  Posen, — were  deposed  by  the  government  and 
subjected  to  imprisonment.  Under  the  pressure  of  va- 
rious beaureaucratic  restrictions,  Prussian  Roman 
Catholics  were  again  in  the  "seventies"  impelled  to  in- 
augurate a  vigorous  protest  against  state  interference 
with  the  Church  that  introduced  the  famous  Kultur- 
kampf.  This  led  to  the  organization  of  a  Church  polit- 
ical party,  called  the  Centre,  of  such  strength  that 
Chancellor  Bismarck  was  forced  to  make  concessions 
by  which  legal  autonomy  was  secured  for  the  Roman 
Catholic  hierarchy  in  Church  administration. 


DIVIDED  CHRISTENDOM  IN  MODERN  TIMES     285 

With  the  growth  of  the  principle  of  toleration  the 
Roman  Catholic  minority  in  the  Netherlands  and  in 
Great  Britain  attained  increase  in  numbers  and  influ- 
ence, while  on  the  external  side  new  sees  were  cre- 
ated to  provide  for  the  regular  supervision  of  their  ad- 
herents. In  Spain  the  constant  revolutions  brought 
many  changes  affecting  monastic  orders,  diocesan 
and  parochial  property;  for  example,  in  1859,  by  an 
arrangement  with  Rome,  all  church  property  not  used 
for  the  actual  support  of  the  clergy  was  absorbed  by 
the  State.  Since  the  Bourbon  restoration  in  1875, 
Spanish  conservatives  have  generally  tended  to  en- 
courage the  clerical  party  because  of  its  monarchical 
sympathies.  Only  recently,  under  a  liberal  govern- 
ment, have  steps  been  taken  to  deal  with  the  growth 
of  monastic  orders,  an  action  which  finally  brought 
about  a  rupture  with  the  Vatican. 

In  Italy  after  the  revolution  in  1848  the  kingdom 
of  Sardinia  took  the  lead  in  doing  away  with  the  re- 
maining mediaeval  elements  of  the  Church  system ; 
monastic  communities,  the  collection  of  tithes,  the 
right  of  asylum,  and  legal  exemptions  were  all  abol- 
ished. On  account  of  the  downfall  of  foreign  domi- 
nation in  the  Penisula,  these  features  of  Piedmontese 
legislation  were  extended  elsewhere  with  important 
supplemental  legislation  by  which  church  property 
was  absorbed  by  the  State  and  the  clergy  made 
dependent  on  salaries  received  from  this  source. 
Finally  the  territories  controlled  by  the  pope  were 
annexed  after  troubled    times  in  which  the  mainte- 


2S6  MODERN  CHURCH  HISTORY 

nance  of  the  temporal  power  was  only  secured  by  the 
intervention  of  Austria  and  France.  Step  by  step 
the  Italian  kingdom  was  extended  toward  Rome;  then 
when  the  French  garrison  was  withdrawn  on  the  out- 
break of  war  between  France  and  Germany,  the  papal 
Capitol,  after  a  weak  show  of  resistance,  was  taken 
by  the  army  of  Victor  Emmanuel  (September,  1870). 
Certain  privileges  of  extra-territoriality  and  monetary 
compensation  were  offered  and  declined  by  the  Curia, 
which  since  this  time  has  maintained  an  irreconcil- 
able attitude  toward  the  Italian  government  on  all 
questions  relating  to  the  occupation  of  Rome. 

In  its  effort  to  exercise  sovereignty  over  people  and 
princes,  the  papacy  has  gradually  receded  from  its 
mediaeval  claims.  The  deposition  of  Elizabeth  by 
Pius  V  is  the  last  conspicuous  act  of  this  character. 
It  is  somewhat  significant,  too,  that  it  allowed  a 
reafifirmation  of  the  Galilean  principles  made  by 
the  French  bishops  regarding  the  sovereignty  of  the 
monarch  in  temporal  concerns.  The  same  attitude 
was  observed  when  the  Irish  bishops  in  1825  ex- 
pressly disavowed  the  right  of  the  pope  to  exercise 
authority  in  matters  of  state  concern.  With  the 
practical  subsidence  of  this  claim  there  arose  a  dis- 
cussion as  to  the  relation  of  the  papacy  to  the  whole 
body  of  the  Church.  The  episcopal  theory  affirmed 
in  the  Galilean  articles  by  which  the  pope's  supremacy 
was  in  reality  reduced  to  a  primacy  of  dignity  and 
honor  was  opposed  by  the  tenet  of  papal  absolutism 
in  doctrine  and  administration.     During  the  revolu- 


DIVIDED  CHRISTENDOM  IN  MODERN  TIMES     287 

tionary  era  the  policy  of  secularization  weakened  the 
episcopate,  and  the  rise  of  democracy  encouraged  the 
tendencies  already  strongly  at  work  to  transform  the 
whole  machinery  of  the  Church  according  to  the  ideals 
of  absolute  centralized  control  as  the  best  protection 
against  liberalism. 

In  the  official  theological  schools  the  thesis  of 
papal  infallibility  rapidly  gained  ground ;  it  was  pop- 
ular in  the  religious  orders  and  especially  among 
the  Jesuits.  In  Rome  itself  it  was  practically  acted 
upon  by  Pius  IX  in  the  declaration  by  which  the 
Immaculate  Conception  (1852)  was  made  an  article 
of  faith  "by  his  supreme  and  infallible  oracle."  The 
controversy  was  brought  to  a  close  by  the  Vatican 
Council,  although  there  was  a  strong  opposition  which 
thought  the  proposal  to  declare  the  pope  infallible 
either  inopportune  or  contrary  to  earlier  teachings. 
Finally  the  council,  on  the  i8th  of  July,  1870,  accepted 
a  formula  which  to  a  certain  degree  resembled  a  com- 
promise when  it  promulgated  as  a  dogma  the  proposi- 
tion that  the  pope  is  infallible  when  he  speaks  "ex 
cathedra",  i.e.  whenever  he  is  performing  the  function 
of  the  official  mouthpiece  of  the  Church.  The  pro- 
mulgation of  this  dogma  caused  a  revolt  among  a 
small  number  of  Roman  Catholics  in  Germany  and 
Switzerland  who  organized  a  separate  body,  known 
since  as  the  Old  Catholic  Church. 

Another  troubled  period  was  ushered  in  during  the 
early  years  of  the  present  century  through  the  teach- 
ing of  Modernism,  a  movement  which  aimed  at  the 


288  MODERN  CHURCH  HISTORY 

free  appropriation  by  Roman  Catholics,  without  offi- 
cial interference,  of  the  critical,  historical  and  philo- 
sophical standards  of  modern  thought.  A  formidable 
campaign  was  instituted  against  the  innovations  by 
papal  pronunciamentos,  and  also  by  the  construction 
of  special  machinery  for  discovering,  suspending  and 
removing  clergy  who  were  suspected  of  sympathy 
with  the  new  movement.  With  the  large  growth  of 
population  in  the  nineteenth  century  the  influence  of 
these  new  social  conditions  has  not  been  without  its 
influence  on  the  Roman  Church.  Many  practices 
are  favored  to  give  a  popular  color  to  a  religion  pro- 
fessed by  the  masses.  New  forms  of  devotion  have 
been  introduced  with  great  applause,  such  as  the 
Sacred  Heart  and  the  Cult  of  St.  Joseph.  Pilgrimages 
to  miraculous  shrines  are  encouraged  where  wonder- 
cures  are  performed.  Much  of  this  new  propaganda  is 
connected  with  the  surprising  growth  of  religious  or- 
ders in  recent  times.  Old  communities  have  been  re- 
stored and  new  ones  organized ;  more  particularly  has 
this  expansion  been  noticed  in  the  case  of  orders  for 
women.  In  Paris  in  1864  there  were  nineteen  orders 
for  men  with  twenty-three  houses,  while  there  were 
thirty-nine  for  wonen  with  fifty-five  houses.  By  1892, 
when  the  city  had  grown  in  population  half  as  much 
again,  there  were  one  hundred  and  thirty-four  houses 
for  men  and  nearly  five  hundred  and  fifty  for  women ; 
and  throughout  the  whole  of  France  in  190 1  there 
were  four  times  as  many  nuns  as  there  had  been  at 
the  outbreak  of  the   revolution   in    1789.     Even   in 


DIVIDED  CHRISTENDOM  IN  MODERN  TIMES     289 

Protestant  Prussia  there  were  in  1896  about  fourteen 
hundred  houses  with  a  membership  of  nearly  twenty 
thousand. 

Calvinism 

Of  the  two  great  remaining  confessional  divisions 
of  Western  Christendom,  Calvinism  showed  the  great- 
est power  of  expansion  after  the  close  of  the  era  of 
religious  revolution.  The  reason  for  this  capacity  for 
growth  may  be  sought  for  in  the  fact  that  it  became 
indigenous  in  the  most  progressive  countries  in  Eu- 
rope, and  especially  attained  predominant  influence 
in  England  and  Holland,  which  developed  into  great 
maritime  powers.  It  was  strengthened,  too,  by  its 
clear,  dogmatic  formularies,  by  its  vigorous  political 
ideals  and  organization  and  by  its  encouragement  of 
a  warlike,  conquering  spirit  modelled  on  Old  Testa- 
ment precedents.  What  it  could  accomplish  may  be 
seen  in  the  successful  struggle  against  overwhelming 
odds'  in  Holland  when  that  state  won  its  indepen- 
dence from  the  Spanish  monarchy,  and  also  in  the 
obstinate  maintenance  by  Scottish  Presbyterians  of 
their  autonomy  in  the  long  struggle  with  the  Stuarts. 
In  Switzerland  Calvinism  supplanted  Zwinglianism, 
and  in  the  most  progressive  districts  of  Germany, 
Lutheranism.  The  most  conspicuous  successes  in 
this  last  field  were  the  conversion  of  the  Elector  of 
Brandenburg  and  the  entire  religious  control  of  the 
Palatinate.  Even  in  Poland  a  part  of  the  nobility 
and  some  of  the  cities  adopted  the  French  reformers' 


290  MODERN  CHURCH  HIS  TOR  V 

creed,  while  some  of  the  Magyars  took  the  same  step, 
though  the  German  districts  in  Hungary  adopted 
Lutheranism. 

After  attaining  this  cosmopolitan  position  in  Eu- 
rope, Calvinists  came  to  occupy  the  newly  founded 
possessions  of  England  in  America.  In  the  southern 
colonies  the  Anglican  Church  prevailed  in  districts 
where  there  were  large  estates.  Separated  from  them 
by  the  Dutch  settlements,  the  New  England  communi- 
ties grew  up  composed  of  artisans,  merchants  and  yeo- 
men of  austere  Puritan  stock,  who  had  fled  from  home 
because  of  the  religious  policy  of  the  Stuarts.  These 
settlements  developed  into  Non-conformist  colonies, 
endowed  by  royal  charters  with  the  most  extensive 
privileges  of  free  government.  In  polity  the  New 
England  Church  was  congregationalist,  but  the  line 
between  State  and  Church  was  vaguely  drawn,  for  the 
State  was  entrusted  with  large  powers  in  maintaining 
dogma  and  morals  in  accordance  with  the  strictest 
Calvinistic  tenets.  The  more  regularly  organized  Cal- 
vinists, the  American  Presbyterians,  are  due  to  a  much 
later  wave  of  immigration  of  Scotch  and  Irish  settlers. 
Along  with  these  must  be  enumerated  the  immigrants 
of  Calvinistic  training  from  Holland,  the  Palatinate 
and  France,  who  all  cooperated  to  create  a  sturdy, 
freedom-loving  and  strictly  orthodox  type  of  society 
wherever  they  made  their  home. 

The  theocratic  ideals  of  Calvinism  tended  to  strong 
organization  with  detailed  disciplinary  supervision: 
the   Church   is  the  community  of   the  elect  in  this 


DIVIDED  CHRISTENDOM  IN  MODERN  TIMES    291 

worki,  ruled  over  by  Christ  in  heaven.    It  does  not  con- 
sist ih  institutions  or  in  means  of  grace,  but  is  found 
in  the  persons  of  the  elect  acting  under  supernatural 
control,  to  the  exclusion  of  all   human   instruments. 
This  community,  being  the  form  in  which  salvation  is 
presented,  is  governed  directly  by  the  Bible;  officers 
in  Church  and  State  are  coordinate  organs  of  control^ 
but  they  must  show  their  ability  to  stand  the  scrip- 
tural test  in  the  exercise  of  their  functions.     As  to 
unbelievers,  they  must  be  held  in  subjection  and  the 
reality  of  a  visible,  concrete  community  of  saints  is 
kept  intact.    Reliance  on  secular  authority  was  deeply 
rooted  in  the  Calvinistic  theocracy,  but  the  secular 
authority  must  be  faithful  to  the  standards  imposed  by 
the  community:  it  was  bound  to  support  the  Church 
''where  the  pure  word  of  God   was   preached";   in 
secular  things  it  was  sovereign  over  the  clergy  and 
had  the  final  decision  in  cases  of  doubt  because  of  its 
Christian  character;  it  was  also  expected  to  use  its 
police  power  and  its  financial  resources  to  support  the 
Church. 

The  closest  realization  of  these  ideals  was  found 
in  Geneva,  in  Scotland,  and  in  New  England.  In 
France  Calvinism  had  on  its  hands  a  conflict  with  an 
antagonistic  State,  where  the  Church  had  provision- 
ally to  organize  itself  until  the  "godless"  sovereign 
power  could  be  convinced  of  its  error.  Here  the  prin- 
ciple was  recognized  that  by  the  exercise  of  the  sover- 
eignty of  a  people  themselves  Christian  a  sinful  ruler 
might  be  supplanted.     In  Holland  the  rigorous  sys- 


292  MODERN  CHURCH  HISTOR  Y 


tern  was  markedly  attenuated  because  of  the  political 
and  economic  environment.  The  House  of  Orange 
itself  never  permitted  clerical  supremacy,  with  the 
result  that  real  toleration  came  to  be  practised, 
although  the  early  leaders  of  liberalism,  men  such  as 
Barneveldt  and  Grotius,  found  their  attacks  on  the 
strict  Calvinistic  party  a  costly  experiment.  Even  in 
New  England,  as  time  went  on,  the  rigorist  standards 
were  softened  to  something  resembling  toleration,  be- 
cause of  religious  variations  in  the  several  colonies. 
In  public  worship  Calvinism  followed  the  most  rad- 
ical model.  The  Church  became  a  meeting-house. 
The  aesthetic  appeal  was  altogether  rejected.  No 
feast  days  were  permitted  but  Sunday,  and  Sunday  it- 
self became  identical  with  the  Jewish  Sabbath.  One 
of  the  most  important  adjuncts  of  the  Calvinistic  pol- 
ity was  its  educational  system  to  which  the  Genevan 
reformer  himself  had  given  great  attention.  This 
model  was  followed  both  in  the  Huguenot  acade- 
mies and,  in  a  more  important  development,  by  the 
^'Reformed"  universities  of  Holland;  conspicuous 
among  them  being  the  great  citadel  of  Humanism, 
Leyden,  where  during  the  seventeenth  century  schol- 
ars of  international  reputation  found  the  most  con- 
genial atmosphere  in  Europe. 

LUTHERANISM 

After  the  long  period  of  conflict  which  was  not  closed 
until  the  conclusion  of  the  Thirty  Years'  War,  the 
Lutheran  Church  remained  true  to  its  original  type. 


DIVIDED  CHRISTENDOM  IN  MODERN  TIMES     293 

Doctrinally  it  developed  into  a  hard-and-fast  neo- 
Scholasticism.  Its  dogmatic  system  was  formulated 
with  the  purpose  of  bringing  out  sharply  its  antago- 
nism to  Tridentine  and  Calvinistic  formulas.  Abso- 
lute uniformity  of  belief  was  insisted  upon,  and 
though  the  aim  seemed  impossible  of  realization, 
because  of  the  subtlety  of  the  theological  disputes  in 
which  trained  experts  could  alone  formulate  opinions, 
elaborate  doctrinal  statements  were  prepared  to  which 
subscription  was  demanded  from  pastors  and  teachers. 
Among  the  rank  and  file  of  church  members  the  influ- 
ence of  this  atmosphere  may  be  seen  in  the  extra- 
ordinary attention  paid  to  catechetical  literature. 

In  public  worship  the  preaching  office  was  the 
important  factor;  just  as  the  priest  under  the  old 
system  was  the  dispenser  of  the  sacrament,  under  the 
new  he  dispensed  the  mystery  of  salvation  as  revealed 
in  the  Scriptures.  In  public  worship  the  conserva- 
tive tendencies  of  Luther  were  continued  and  many 
elements  of  the  old  service  were  retained,  provided 
they  did  not  directly  interfere  with  his  postulate  that 
salvation  comes  through  the  Bible  alone.  The  old 
calendar  and  lectionary  were  preserved ;  laying  on  of 
hands  in  ordination  by  presbyters  was  continued. 
Both  the  rite  of  confirmation  and  also  the  practice  of 
confession  were  features  of  the  religious  custom  of 
the  Church,  even  if  dogmatically  these  usages  were 
not  given  the  historical  interpretation  of  other  ages. 
In  the  celebration  of  the  Communion  not  a  few  of  the 
liturgical  customs  of  the  Mass  were  kept  up,  and  in 


294  MODERN  CHURCH  HISTOR  Y 

the  Order  for  Baptism  the  exorcism  was  still  in- 
cluded. Much  attention  was  given  to  music,  espe- 
cially the  congregational  singing  of  hymns. 

In  its  ecclesiastical  administration  the  Lutheran 
churches,  territorially  organized  as  they  were,  stood 
under  the  supervision  of  the  sovereign  of  the  terri- 
tory. All  real  autonomy  of  the  Church  disappeared; 
its  affairs  were  administered  under  the  direction  of 
secular  princes,  and  this  principle  was  ultimately 
extended  to  decisions  on  matters  of  faith.  There 
was  no  conception  of  a  Lutheran  Church  extending 
beyond  fixed  territorial  divisions.  The  essential 
feature  of  Lutheranism  is  the  isolated  local  Church, 
whose  limits  were  decided  by  the  extent  of  territory 
ruled  over  by  a  particular  territorial  prince.  This 
represented  Luther's  own  ideal;  he  had  more  confi- 
dence in  princes  than  either  in  a  Christian  democracy 
or  an  oligarchy  made  up  of  nobles  or  even  clerics. 
The  Church  was  ruled  by  a  mixed  commission  com- 
posed of  lawyers  and  theologians  acting  under  the 
authority  of  the  State.  The  function  of  the  clerical 
members  was  to  offer  correct  interpretations  of  the 
Bible  so  that  questions  of  discipline  and  adminis- 
tration might  be  decided  according  to  the  orthodox 
standards  of  Christian  enlightenment.  Under  the 
influence  of  these  legal  interpreters  the  theory  came 
to  be  accepted  that  the  territorial  sovereign  had  vir- 
tually inherited  all  that  was  implied  in  the  previously 
existing  episcopal  jurisdiction. 

It  was  sometime  before   these  rigid  lines  of  Lu- 


DIVIDED  CHIRSTENDOM  IN  MODERN  TIMES    295 

theran  orthodoxy  were  broken  by  a  revolt,  which  is  in 
some  ways  analogous  to  the  Wesleyan  movement  in 
England,  The  leader  of  this  new  direction  was  Ph. 
J.  Spener,  who,  beginning  in  Frankfort,  organized 
groups  of  disciples  to  meet  together  for  devotional 
exercises.  Opposition  was  not  wanting  in  orthodox 
circles.  Spener,  after  being  driven  from  Saxony, 
took  refuge  in  Berlin,  where  he  was  given  an  official 
position,  and  his  followers,  Francke  and  Anton,  re- 
ceived chairs  in  the  newly  founded  University  of 
Halle,  where  the  influence  of  Pietism  continued  to 
predominate  for  two  centuries.  In  the  nineteenth 
century  the  status  of  Lutheranism  was  radically 
effected  by  a  union  with  the  Calvinists  (1817),  which 
was  supported  by  the  Prussian  government;  many 
Lutherans  refused  to  abide  by  the  state-enforced 
compact,  and  after  some  years  of  obstinate  resistance 
were,  in  1841,  given  legal  recognition  by  Prussia. 
Since  this  period,  owing  to  the  strong  partisan  organ- 
ization of  German  Roman  Catholics,  more  or  less  suc- 
cessful attempts  have  been  made  to  induce  all  Ger- 
man Protestants  to  act  together,  using  as  a  common 
ground  of  union  such  foundations  as  the  Gustavus 
Adolphus  Society  and  the  Evangelical  Alliance;  their 
propaganda  is  especially  directed  against  the  Centre 
or  Roman  Catholic  party. 

Missionary  Expansion 

In  missionary  expansion,    the  primary  place  was 
taken    for  some  time  by  the  Roman  Catholic  com- 


2%  MODERN  CHURCH  HISTORY 

munion  which,  through  its  religious  orders,  especially 
the  Jesuits  and  Capuchins,  made  a  systematic  effort 
to  undertake  the  work  of  conversion  in  the  new  lands 
opened  up  for  European  occupation  by  Spanish  and 
Portuguese  explorers.  In  1622  the  Congregation  De 
Propaganda  Fide  was  given  general  supervision  of 
missionary  work;  soon  special  institutions  for  train- 
ing missionaries  were  founded  in  Rome  and  Paris. 
The  native  races  of  America  found  worthy  champions 
of  their  rights  against  the  atrocities  of  the  sixteenth 
century  colonial  system  in  the  early  missionaries: 
among  whom  Las  Casas  deserves  chief  mention  for 
his  intelligent  and  unremitting  effort  to  protect  the 
American  Indians.  Christianity  made  not  only  note- 
worthy advance  in  the  western  hemisphere,  but  also  in 
the  Philippine  Islands,  which,  after  their  occupation 
by  Spain  in  1571,  soon  became  largely  Christianized. 
India  was  visited  by  St.  Francis  Xavier,  whose  work 
there  was  at  first  crowned  by  great  success.  Later  an 
attempt  was  made  through  the  so-called  "accommoda- 
tion" system  to  take  account  of  the  native  prejudices, 
due  to  their  religious  traditions,  and  certain  ceremonial 
practices  were  altered  to  reconcile  the  Hindoos  to 
the  new  faith.  These  compromises  were  bitterly  op- 
posed by  the  Capuchins,  and  finally  by  an  authorita- 
tive decree  from  Rome  (1744)  the  Jesuit  methods  of 
conversion  were  condemned.  In  Japan  Jesuit  mis- 
sionaries made  numerous  converts;  as  many  as  200,000 
are  reckoned  before  the  close  of  the  sixteenth  cen- 
tury.    After  a  hard  struggle  for  existence  the  Chris- 


DIVIDED  CHRISTENDOM  IN  MODERN  TIMES     297 

tian  community  was  finally  annihilated  in  1638,  largely 
through  the  intrigues  of  Dutch  traders,  who  saw  in 
the  persecution  of  the  Christians  the  best  method 
of  removing  their  rivals,  the  Portuguese,  from  the 
country.  In  China  the  Jesuits,  because  of  their  at- 
tainments in  science  and  education,  had  success  with 
the  court  circles.  They  practised  here  also  the  tenets 
of  ''accommodation",  but  without  gaining  any  large 
number  of  converts.  Finally,  whatever  advantages 
the  system  secured  were  lost  when  it  was  condemned 
by  the  pope,  and  also  when  the  anti-foreign  animus 
of  the  government  becaue  intensified.  With  the  re- 
ligious revival  of  the  nineteenth  century  the  Roman 
Communion  has  shown  admirable  devotion  to  the 
missionary  cause.  Numerous  societies  have  been 
formed  to  encourage  the  work,  and  many  new  insti- 
tutions opened  for  training  missionaries.  In  India 
and  in  China  the  number  of  native  Roman  Catholic 
Christians  is  far  in  excess  of  the  adherents  of  any 
other  religious  organization,  and  in  many  cases  mis- 
sionary expansion  has  been  accomplished  in  the  face 
of  heartrending  persecution. 

It  was  long  before  the  sectarian  spirit,  called  into 
being  by  the  revolution  of  the  sixteenth  century,  could 
be  so  far  overcome  that  the  universal  obligation  of 
missionary  work  was  recognized.  With  the  increased 
attention  given  to  colonial  expansion  the  need  of  look- 
ing after  the  spiritual  welfare  of  the  native  inhabi- 
tants of  the  new  world  could  no  longer  be  disre- 
garded.    In  the  days  of   the   Long  Parliament  the 


298  MODERN  CHURCH  HISTORY 

famous  "Society  for  the  Propagation  of  the  Gospel" 
was  established,  which  contributed  to  support  work 
among  the  Indians  in  the  American  colonies.  Later 
in  the  Queen  Anne  period  it  was  largely  concerned 
with  providing  churches  and  clergy  for  the  English 
colonists.  In  our  own  day  the  chief  work  of  the 
Society  is  the  support  of  mission  stations  in  all  the 
lands  where  gentile  religions  still  prevail.  One  of  the 
results  of  the  Evangelical  Revival  was  the  foundation 
in  1799  of  a  missionary  organization  which  became  in 
a  few  years  the  Church  Missionary  Society  that  to-day 
controls  admirably  administered  mission  stations  in 
many  parts  of  the  world.  At  about  the  same  time  the 
London  Missionary  Society  was  founded  as  a  method 
to  induce  evangelical  communions,  to  concentrate 
their  efforts  in  common  on  the  religious  uplift  of  non- 
Christian  people.  With  these  organizations  taking 
the  lead  similar  societies  came  into  being  during  the 
course  of  the  nineteenth  century,  both  on  the  conti- 
nent of  Europe  and  in  America. 

The  bare  statistics  of  contributions  for  administra- 
tive expenses  alone  give  no  idea  of  the  kind  of  work 
accomplished,  nor  can  it  be  even  measured  by  the 
visible  results  in  conversions.  One  can  only  estimate 
the  product  of  missionary  expansion  when  it  is  stud- 
ied in  the  lives  of  the  men  and  women  who  have  taken 
up  the  work.  Plenty  of  mistakes  have  been  made; 
numerous  have  been  the  examples  of  crude  prepration 
and  inadequate  vision,  but  on  the  whole  the  cumula- 
tive effect  of  the  types  of  personality  represented  in 


DIVIDED  CHRISTENDOM  IN  MODERN  TIMES     299 

all  the  various  phases  of  missionary  zeal  is  irresist- 
ible. No  one  can  read  the  lives  of  Xavier,  of  Liv- 
ingstone, of  Gary  and  of  Patterson,  without  being 
convinced  that  new  standards  of  heroism  have  been 
created. 

As  yet  the  results  may  not  seem  adequate  to  the 
expenditure  of  effort.  Still  the  territories  covered 
have  been  immeasurably  greater  than  those  ever  be- 
fore opened  up  for  missionary  expanison.  And  the 
difficulties  also  have  been  immeasurably  greater; 
peoples,  in  various  stages  of  culture  and  with  ante- 
cedent histories  which  are  often  the  puzzle  of  the 
anthropologist,  have  had  preached  to  them  a  message 
which  has  meant  the  unfolding  of  new  hope  and  of 
undreamed  possibilities.  It  is  coming  to  be  seen  that 
the  bare  record  of  adherents  or  communicants  cannot 
actually  represent  what  Christian  missions  have  ac- 
complished. It  cannot  be  questioned  that  the  unique 
period  of  transition  now  being  ushered  in  for  races 
previously  isolated  and  backward  is  clearly  to  be 
traced  to  the  ever  widening  power  of  the  forces 
originating  the  great  Christian  society  of  which  the 
missionary  is  the  pioneer. 

American  Christianity 

The  religious  development  of  America  was  directly 
conditioned  by  the  forms  and  structure  of  colonial  life. 
Its  ecclesiastical  history  for  some  time  was  but  the  re- 
plica of  home  influence,  whether  the  colony  was  closely 
bound  to  the  mother  country  or  stimulated  by  the  free- 


300  MODERN  CHURCH  HISTORY 

dom  of  colonial  autonomy.  The  Anglican  Church 
grew  to  be  the  established  Church  in  many  of  the 
colonies  where  the  founders  did  not  come  from  the 
rigid  Puritan  stock  that  took  refuge  on  the  New  En- 
land  coast.  Work  on  a  large  scale  was  not  contem- 
plated; the  needs  of  the  colonists,  who  themselves 
showed  little  activity,  prompted  the  formation  of  a 
parish  system  worked  along  the  conventional  lines 
and  modelled  from  the  agricultural  communities  in 
the  mother  country.  When  with  the  growth  of  the 
population  a  more  centralized  and  regular  organization 
was  demanded,  the  project  of  founding  dioceses  with 
bishops  at  their  head  was  opposed  both  in  the  colonies 
and  in  England,  largely  on  political  grounds.  The 
Church  under  the  Hanoverian  monarchy  was  in  too 
lethargic  a  state  to  attempt  an  original  campaign  of 
expansion  in  behalf  of  its  members  across  the  Atlan- 
tic, especially  when  only  a  few  American  Churchmen 
looked  beyond  their  own  parochial  boundaries.  Yet 
under  such  conditions  adherents  were  gained  and  new 
parishes  started  by  the  help  of  the  London  Society  for 
the  Propagation  of  the  Gospel  even  in  colonies  where 
Anglicans  did  not  have  the  privilege  of  state  estab- 
lishment, which  they  enjoyed  in  Maryland,  Virginia, 
and  other  southern  provinces. 

When  independence  was  proclaimed  and  won  by 
a  tedious  and  hardly  contested  war,  the  Anglican 
Church  suffered  more  than  the  material  losses  due  to 
the  confiscation  of  its  property  where  it  had  been 
established.     Its  clergy  for  the  most  part  and  many 


DIVIDED  CHRISTENDOM  IN  MODERN  TIMES    301 

of  its  laity  were  colonial  loyalists;  of  these  large  num- 
bers had  left  the  country  with  the  result  that  churches 
were  left  empty  without  pastoral  supervision.  The  era 
of  reconstruction  was  painful,  and  during  it  many  were 
the  crises  to  which  the  new  order  gave  rise.  Bishops 
were  finally  secured  from  Scotland  and  England,  the 
Prayer  Book  was  revised  in  a  conservative  spirit,  and 
with  a  carefully  drawn  constitution  and  canons  the 
transformed  Colonial  Church  proved  its  ability  and 
right  to  survive,  burdened  though  it  was  with  an  unin- 
spiring past  in  America  and  stamping  itself  officially 
with  the  name  Trotestant  Episcopal',  a  title  which 
recalls  only  the  tactless  religious  compromises  dear  to 
Georgian  England.  A  small,  inconspicuous  role,  in 
fact,  must  be  assigned  as  an  organization  to  Ameri- 
can Anglicanism  during  these  early  years.  Its  chief 
glory  and  title  to  fame  comes  not  from  its  administra- 
tion as  a  corporate  power,  but  because  through  it  many 
of  the  men  who  founded  the  new  Republic  received 
their  religious  nurture.  Weak  as  it  was  and  common- 
place as  were  its  achievements,  it  retained  the  affec- 
tionate respect  of  men  such  as  Washington,  Hamil- 
ton, and  Madison;  and  narrow  though  the  field  may 
have  been.  White  and  Seabury,  the  Church's  earliest 
bishops,  were  leaders  of  high  character  and  capacity. 
American  religious  history  during  the  eighteenth 
century  in  its  wider  appeal  becomes  illuminating, 
because  it  may  be  said  without  indulging  in  paradox, 
that  its  religious  activity  presaged  in  a  way  America's 
economic  and  social  originality,  both  traits  that  are  its 


302  MODERN  CHURCH  HISTORY 

recognized  features  in  the  nineteenth  century.  Indus- 
trially the  colonial  world  was  one  of  routine;  yet 
religiously  the  New  England  Revival,  with  which  the 
name  of  Jonathan  Edwards  is  connected,  was  at  the 
time  a  unique  phenomenon  from  the  scale  of  its  exten- 
sion and  also  in  its  intensity  of  feeling.  Large  acces- 
sions of  labor  power  was  coming  in  with  immigration 
from  the  Old  World.  Unlike  as  were  the  eighteenth 
century  immigrants  from  those  of  the  previous  cen- 
tury, the  principle  of  self-help  showed  itself  as  the 
foundation  of  American  life  in  the  way  in  which 
strange  surroundings  were  made  to  serve  the  purpose 
of  religious  organizations  of  a  new  type.  The  atti- 
tude of  protest  against  a  State-encouraged  ecclesias- 
tical order  was  no  longer  dominant ;  expansion,  not  sec- 
tarian bitterness,  became  the  characteristic  of  Amer- 
ican Christianity.  Bodies  small  on  the  European 
side  of  the  Atlantic  became  strongest  in  the  number 
of  adherents ;  such  as  the  Baptists,  who  in  a  unique  way 
showed  on  American  soil  that  a  compact  religious 
force  could  be  created  without  any  centralized  organi- 
zation. Equally  remarkable  was  the  spread  of  Meth- 
odism, which  demonstrated  by  its  American  experi- 
ence that  the  personal  force  of  a  great  religious  leader 
can  be  translated  into  an  organization  powerfully  knit 
together,  in  which  the  personal  factors  of  leadership 
are  altogethei  subordinate  to  an  admirably  conceived 
model  of  ecclesiastical  administration. 

Such  was  the  preparation  for  the  religious  life  of 
America  during  the  nineteenth  century.     The  mar- 


DIVIDED  CHRISTENDOM  IN  MODERN  TIMES     303 

vellous  growth  of  the  country  in  population  supplied 
the  field  in  which  these  forces  were  to  work.  It  took 
some  time  before  the  obstacles  which  impeded  the 
growth  of  the  Anglican  Church  were  overcome.  The 
advance  in  church  extension  became  noticeable  after 
the  third  decade  of  the  century.  New  dioceses  came 
into  existence  and  in  the  older  ones,  notably  in  New 
York  under  the  leadership  of  Bishop  Hobart,  the  old 
tradition  which  aimed  solely  at  preserving  ''those 
things  which  remain"  were  definitely  abandoned  for 
an  aggressive  programme.  Vantage  points  were  oc- 
cupied, with  the  result  that  in  the  eastern  section  of 
the  country  a  strong  position  was  secured,  especially 
in  the  cities  and  larger  towns.  In  the  Middle  West 
less  enterprise  was  shown,  with  the  result  that  in  the 
new,  rapidly  growing  states  the  representatives  of  the 
Church  were  unable  to  gather  about  them  large  num- 
bers of  adherents.  In  a  whole  tier  of  dioceses,  cen- 
tring about  the  Mississippi  Valley,  this  inability  to 
plan  an  aggressive  campaign  when  it  was  needed  has 
left  as  its  inheritance  a  zone  where  the  number  of 
communicants  in  proportion  to  the  population  is  ex- 
tremely small  and  the  existing  rate  of  increase  is  slow. 
Further  west  a  wiser  statesmanship  prevailed.  As 
the  more  distant  states  were  settled  provision  was 
made  systematically  for  church  extension.  Through 
its  administrative  machinery  the  whole  territory  of 
the  United  States  is  now  occupied.  Statistically 
judged  by  its  weak  beginning,  the  position  of  the 
Anglican   Church    is  strong,  for   it   numbers   on  its 


304  MODERN  CHURCH  HISTORY 

lists  more  than  a  hundred  bishops,  over  five  thousand 
clergy  and  nearly  a  million  actual  communicants.  The 
era  of  partisan  strife  has  happily  passed  away,  and 
some  of  the  evils  of  an  exaggerated  parochialism  and 
a  short-sighted  provincialism  have  been  overcome,  as 
is  witnessed  to-day  by  the  interest  taken  in  pro- 
moting the  programme  of  the  Board  of  Missions.  In 
concerns  of  internal  development,  amidst  the  mass  of 
details,  one  cannot  fail  to  single  out  as  of  vital  mo- 
ment the  rapid  reunion  of  the  two  sections  of  the 
Church  after  the  close  of  the  Civil  War,  the  ability 
of  its  organization  to  resist  the  schismatic  movement 
in  the  seventies  that  led  to  the  formation  of  the 
Reformed  Episcopal  Church,  and,  finally,  the  long- 
continued  process  of  Prayer  Book  revision  which, 
though  hardly  satisfactory  to  the  liturgical  expert, 
represents  a  conscientious  and  conservative  attempt 
to  deal  with  a  thorny  problem. 

In  the  face  of  the  manifold  divisions  in  American 
religious  life  one  might  be  tempted  to  adopt  a  crit- 
ical attitude  toward  its  whole  evolution  as  merely  a 
phenomenon  showing  lost  opportunities  and  ineffec- 
tive effort.  In  the  life  of  no  one  communion  is  there 
condensed  the  complete  spiritual  vitality  of  the  nation, 
nor  indeed  in  the  sum  of  the  several  fragments  can 
there  be  revealed  the  achievements  or  the  aims  of  the 
Christian  social  conscience.  Much  beneficent  activ- 
ity is  made  impossible  by  the  limitations  imposed 
through  the  existence  of  organizations  which  tend  to 
an  almost  infinite  reduplication  of  officers  and  institu- 


DIVIDED  CHRISTENDOM  IN  MODERN  TIMES     305 

tions  over  a  common  territory.  The  fact  that  so  much 
good  can  be  done  under  a  regime  of  denominational 
difference  and  misunderstanding  that  would  seem 
unworkable  if  an  analogous  system  were  adopted  in 
the  civil  government  of  a  modern  state,  shows  how 
strong  are  the  sources  of  man's  spiritual  energy.  The 
achievements  of  American  Christianity  are,  however, 
visible  not  only  in  church  buildings,  hospitals,  ed- 
ucational institutions,  philanthropic  societies  of  all 
kinds  and  purposes,  but  just  as  much  in  the  way  in 
which  Americans,  though  they  are  severed  in  their 
confessional  allegiance,  have  learned  to  live  together 
in  harmony  and  work  together  to  secure  the  common 
aims  of  Christian  civilization. 

Through  its  freedom  from  the  State,  American 
Christianity  had  before  it  a  wide  field  for  experimen- 
tation. The  position  was  a  novel  one,  for  the  records 
of  church  history  prove  how  much  incident  and 
stimulus  have  come  through  association  with  the  State 
or  by  opposition  to  state  control.  Now  that  this 
point  of  contact  was  absent  it  was  a  question  whether 
the  American  communions  would  accept  the  subordi- 
nate ideals  of  non-conforming  bodies  in  Europe  or 
whether  they  would  maintain  that  virile  corporate 
self-consciousness  which  seemed  to  belong  histori- 
cally to  the  state  connection.  The  potent  factor  con- 
trolling the  evolution  of  American  Christianity  was 
primarily  due  to  the  enormous  accession  of  new  terri- 
tory that  came  to  the  United  States  as  the  result  of 
the  Louisiana  purchase.      The  days  of  small  things 


306  MODERN  CHURCH  HISTOR  V 

inherited  from  the  Colonial  period  were  bound  to  give 
way  with  the  era  of  immigration  into  the  newly  opened 
western  territories.  The  opportunity  of  their  occupa- 
toin  was  eagerly  seized  by  the  Baptists  and  the  Meth- 
odists. It  was  estimated  that  at  the  beginning  of  the 
century  most  of  the  Virginia  Baptists  had  migrated 
to  Kentucky,  and  the  actual  expansion  of  Methodism 
throughout  the  newly  opened  West  can  only  be  paral- 
leled in  modern  times  by  the  rapid  advance  made  by 
the  Russian  Church  in  the  tribes  of  Central  Asia. 
Under  the  inspiration  of  this  great  westward  impulse 
a  new  movement  of  awakening  began.  Its  centre  was 
in  the  backwoods  and  among  frontier  populations. 
The  pioneer  communities  of  the  West  were  shaken  by 
a  wave  of  emotionalism  which  left  as  a  permanent  en- 
dowment the  "camp-meeting"  and  which  produced 
new  sectarian  organizations,  giving  a  primary  place 
to  the  phenomena  of  conversion. 

The  practical  trend  of  American  religious  life  soon 
proved  itself  able  to  overcome  a  purely  individual- 
istic theory.  Missionary  boards  were  established  by 
all  the  important  evangelical  communions.  Under  the 
leadership  of  Judson  the  American  Baptists,  who  even 
in  the  early  days  of  the  nineteenth  century  numbered 
as  many  as  200,000  communicants,  prepared  for  an 
active  campaign  of  missionary  work.  Their  example 
was  soon  followed  by  others.  Questions  nearer  at 
home  began  to  be  actively  taken  up  by  the  collective 
Christian  conscience  of  the  land.  Duelling,  the 
treatment  of  the  Indians,  the  existence  of  slavery,  the 


DIVIDED  CHRISTENDOM  IN  MODERN  TIMES    307 

need  of  temperance  reform,  all  of  these  were  subjects 
in  which  the  conflicts  of  sectarianism  were  tran- 
scended, and  the  effect  of  cumulative  pressure  pro- 
duced far-reaching  results  in  all  those  American 
Churches  that  had  drawn  to  them  the  loyal  allegiance 
of  the  masses  of  the  population. 

Various  societies  devoted  to  religion  and  philan- 
thropy witnessed  to  the  common  serious  purpose  of 
evangelization  (American  Bible  Society  1816,  Amer- 
ican Tract  Society  1825,  Seamen's  Friend  Society 
1826).  In  pioneer  work  throughout  the  rapidly  grow- 
ing states  of  the  Middle  West  the  Methodists  and  Bap- 
tists took  and  retained  an  acknowledged  lead.  The 
Presbyterians  who  had  held  a  strong  position  in  the 
early  days  of  the  republic  dropped  behind,  because 
their  forward  movement  was  impeded  by  schismatic 
dissensions  and  also  because  in  novel  social  conditions 
their  system  proved  inelastic.  The  Congregational- 
ists,  strongly  rooted  in  New  England  traditions,  re- 
mained true  to  the  rock  from  which  they  were  hewn 
and  did  valiant  service  in  founding  colleges,  semi- 
naries and  in  encouraging  religious  journalism.  Dis- 
cussions concerning  the  moral  position  of  slavery  had 
brought  about  sectional  divisions  among  the  Baptists 
and  Methodists  some  time  before  the  Civil  War.  At 
its  outbreak  the  Presbyterians  also  formed  northern 
and  southern  organizations. 

From  small  inconspicuous  beginnings  the  American 
Roman  Catholics  have  grown  into  the  strongest  com- 
munion   numerically  in    the  United  States.     Their 


308  MODERN  CHURCH  HISTORY 

growth  is  a  part  of  the  economic  history  of  the  country, 
so  intimately  is  it  related  to  the  demand  for  labor  in 
the  newly  opened  fields  of  industry  in  all  its  forms. 
Though  a  peoples'  Church,  it  maintains  in  a  democracy 
the  rigid  standards  of  autocratic  rule.  Yet  in  a  dem- 
ocratic environment  there  have  been  many  modifica- 
tions of  the  rigidity  which  characterizes  the  ultra- 
montanism  of  continental  Europe.  The  self-help  of 
American  life  has  been  appropriated  with  an  energy 
and  shrewdness  that  have  enabled  the  authorities  of  the 
Church  to  accomplish  results  in  church  expansion  that 
would  have  puzzled  any  college  of  cardinals,  even  if 
presented  as  a  programme  of  remote  possibilities. 
Dominated  by  the  Celtic  element,  largely  because  the 
Irish  laborer  was  the  first  to  answer  the  call  of  the 
New  World  in  an  era  of  unparalleled  material  develop- 
ment, the  American  Roman  Catholics  have  been  pro- 
tected from  serious  racial  dissensions  among  their 
adherents  simply  through  the  rapid  process  of  social 
assimilation  which  takes  place  on  the  American  soil. 
All  the  religious  institutional  life  of  the  Old  World 
which  is  there  so  carefully  supervised  by  the  State  in 
the  countries  where  Roman  Catholics  are  in  the  ma- 
jority has  been  transplanted  to  America  where  the 
Church  is  allowed  free  and  unrestricted  autonomous 
privileges.  An  independent  educational  system  has 
been  created  which  permits  the  Church  to  train  its  ad- 
herents according  to  the  fixed  standards  of  ecclesiasti- 
cal loyalty  without  interference  from  the  secular  au- 
thorities.   From  every  point  of  view  the  experiment  is 


DIVIDED  CHRISTENDOM  IN  MODERN  TIMES      309 

a  novel  one;  a  religious  communion  which  condemns 
the  principle  of  a  free  Church  in  a  free  State  has  dem- 
onstrated its  rights  to  exist  and  grow  in  a  country 
which  recognizes  no  relationship  between  citizenship 
and  confessional  allegiance. 

On  a  smaller  scale  the  American  Lutherans  have 
received  large  increments  from  the  successive  waves  of 
immigration  in  the  nineteenth  century.  Their  growth 
in  membership  is  clearly  connected  with  the  accessions 
due  to  the  settlers  from  Germany  and  Scandinavia. 
Loosely  organized,  the  Lutheran  Church  in  America 
has  hardly  shown  the  vigor  that  might  be  expected 
from  its  favored  position  as  the  natural  home  of  so 
many  new-comers  from  the  lands  of  northern  Europe. 

From  the  first  Calvinism  controlled  the  religious 
thought  of  America,  and  much  of  the  internal  history 
of  its  strongest  religious  bodies  has  been  influenced 
by  controversies  regarding  the  limits  of  Calvinistic 
orthodoxy.  New  separatist  movements  have  followed 
these  discussions,  and  frequently  the  separation  has 
maintained  itself  long  after  the  original  causes  of  dis- 
sension were  forgotten  or  removed.  The  Universal- 
ists  and  the  Disciples  are  clearly  the  offsprings  of  re- 
volt from  the  iron  hand  of  the  Geneva  reformer. 
Though  Calvinism  has  disintegrated,  these  ''protes- 
tanf  movements  are  bound  by  the  term  of  their  orig- 
inal charter  to  treat  it  by  a  kind  of  legal  fiction  as  still 
dominant  in  the  bodies  from  which  they  separated. 
American  Unitarianism  attests  the  vitality  of  Chris- 
tian ethics  long  after  Christian  dogma  has  been  cast 


310  MODERN  CHURCH  HISTOR  V 

aside.  The  record  of  Unitarians  in  philanthropy,  in 
civic  idealism  and  social  altruism  should  weigh  heav- 
ily in  the  scale  whenever  one  is  tempted  to  define 
their  position  by  their  own  persistant  but  unsuccess- 
ful attempts  to  separate  themselves  from  historical 
Christianity. 

The  Eastern  Church 

A  French  historical  scholar  has  adopted  the  term 
*cesaro-papalism'  to  indicate  the  type  of  ecclesiastical 
administration  by  which  the  Eastern  Church  was  con- 
trolled. The  phrase  is  equally  suggestive  historically, 
since  the  fortunes  of  the  Eastern  Church  were  closely 
bound  up  with  the  vicissitudes  of  the  Roman  Empire 
in  the  East.  As  the  Empire  dwindled  away  in  the 
face  of  the  attacks  of  Islam,—  first  at  the  hands  of  the 
Caliphate  and  the  Emirates,— and  then  continued  a 
weak  and  pitiable  existence  after  the  brutal  and  ill- 
considered  assaults  of  the  western  crusaders,  so  the 
Church  in  the  East  was  disintegrated  and  paralyzed 
by  the  hapless  fate  of  the  civil  power.  Large  mem- 
bers of  Christians  must  have  become  Moslems,  those 
who  were  faithful  were  exposed  to  the  incessant  wear- 
ing away  of  hope  and  energy  in  an  intolerable  isola- 
tion. Vigorous  elements  were  added  by  the  acces- 
sion of  the  Slavonic  races  in  the  stages  of  conversion 
and  expansion  previously  noted  in  these  pages.  But 
even  here  development  was  arrested  in  these  new  na- 
tional churches  by  conquerors  of  alien  race.  In  the 
Balkan  Peninsula  the  Slav  peoples  had  in  the  end  to 


DIVIDED  CHRISTENDOM  IN  MODERN  TIMES    31 1 

submit  to  the  Turkish  yoke.  From  this  time  on  the 
Eastern  Church  outside  Russia  was  an  organization 
under  the  supervision  of  a  Mohammedan  sultanate, 
which  used  it  as  a  convenient  instrument  for  govern- 
ing its  Christian  subjects.  This  degrading  patron- 
age was  as  disastrous  as  the  crude  repression  always 
exercised  by  the  Turk  against  any  Christians  who 
failed  to  accept  the  stagnation  and  corruption  of  Ot- 
toman rule. 

Dean  Church  has  given  in  his  Gifts  of  Civilizatio7i 
a  beautiful  description  of  the  survival  of  Christian 
character,  of  the  permanence  of  Christian  steadfast- 
ness among  the  lowly  victims  of  this  Turkish  con- 
quest. His  plea  may  outweigh  the  disgust  excited 
by  the  story  of  Phanariot  intrigues,  the  squabbles  of 
commonplace  venal  patriarchs  and  bishops,  and  may 
enable  us  with  an  easy  conscience  to  pass  over  the 
interminable  and  unprofitable  dialectical  disputes 
burdening  a  church,  the  members  of  which  were 
treated  no  better  than  helots.  Only  in  the  nineteenth 
century  has  a  better  day  dawned.  Greece  again  be- 
came free,  and  in  course  of  time  as  Turkish  domina- 
tion collapsed  the  Slavonic  peoples  in  southern  Europe 
gained  along  with  political  independence  religious 
autonomy.  Byzantine  traditions  are  still  prevalent; 
all  of  these  churches  are  national  in  a  sense  unrealized 
in  western  Europe.  Cesaro-papalism  in  another  form 
flourishes,  the  only  protection  against  it  being  the  gen- 
eral antipathy  of  the  Slav  to  allow  his  logic  to  iterfere 
with  his  imagination  and  his  emotions.     In  the  Hel- 


312  MODERN  CHURCH  HISTORY 

lenic  Kingdom  itself  a  measure  of  autonomy  is  enjoyed 
by  the  Church,  as  something  of  the  old  spirit  of  the 
Greek  democracy  has  revived.  In  all  these  countries 
the  Church  of  the  land  is  the  Church  of  the  masses  of 
the  people.  Dissent  exists  only  on  a  limited  scale; 
clericalism  is  unknown  because  the  clergy  do  not  con- 
trol the  Church,  Without  formal  bonds  of  union  and 
with  no  desire  to  create  a  mechanism  for  cooperation 
the  Christian  peoples  of  southern  Europe,  separated 
as  they  are  by  speech  and  tradition,  are  conscious  of  a 
community  of  faith  and  doctrine  which  gives  them  a 
genuine  if  still  imperfect  basis  of  common  action  in 
the  religious  sphere.  Racial  antagonism  is  still  active, 
and  in  the  East  it  often  produces  results  more  dis- 
astrous to  the  ideals  of  Christian  amity  than  the  sec- 
tarianism of  the  Occident. 

From  small  beginnings  the  Russian  Church  has 
come  to  cover  a  territory  of  immense  geographic  ex- 
tent; with  its  membership  of  over  eighty  millions  it 
far  exceeds  in  size  any  other  National  Church.  Its 
advance  has  coincided  with  the  phenomenal  expansion 
of  Russia  as  a  political  power  in  the  eighteenth  and 
nineteenth  centuries.  Cesaro-papalism  in  Russia  has 
produced  a  type  of  Christian  allegiance  due  to  Sla- 
vonic environment  that  is  hard  for  Western  Christians 
who  have  gone  through  an  entirely  different  histor- 
ical development  to  appreciate  or  understand.  When 
one  turns  to  the  early  period  of  the  Russian  Church 
the  initial  illumination  comes  from  looking  at  the 
map  of  mediaeval  Europe.     Poland,  not  Russia,  was 


DIVIDED  CHRISTENDOM  IN  MODERN  TIMES     313 

the  predominant  Slavonic  power.  The  domains  under 
Russian  control  were  of  comparatively  small  extent. 
With  the  Mongol  invasion,  which  resulted  in  an  occu- 
pation of  over  two  hundred  years,  the  Church  as  well 
as  the  State  suffered  from  the  oversight  of  their  pagan 
conquerors,  although  in  no  sense  could  the  policy  of 
Genghis  Khan  and  his  successors  be  called  a  perse- 
cution applied  after  the  familiar  model  of  Western 
Christendom.  As  autonomy  in  a  rough  way  was  con- 
ceded, an  opportunity  was  given  for  the  growth  of  a 
national  consciousness  by  which  the  Russian  State 
.  was  consolidated  and  the  Russian  Church  became  in- 
spired with  a  national  sentiment  and  refused  vigor- 
ously the  suggestion  of  submission  to  Roman  claims 
made  by  its  metropolitan  at  the  Council  of  Florence. 
Even  dependence  on  Constantinople  was  abandoned 
after  the  conquest  of  the  capital  of  the  Eastern  Empire 
by  the  Ottomans,  with  the  result  that  the  supremacy 
of  the  grand  dukes  in  ecclesiastical  affairs  became 
complete. 

While  the  onward  sweep  of  the  Turk  turned  the 
Christian  powers  of  southern  Europe  into  a  status  of 
dependency,  in  Russia  Mongol  domination  disappeared 
through  the  victories  of  the  Turks  over  the  Mongols 
in  Asia.  All  the  events,  political  and  religious,  which 
tended  to  weaken  the  states  adjacent  to  the  territory 
of  the  Russian  grand  dukes  concurred  to  promote  the 
growth  of  their  own  power.  It  is  no  accident  that 
the  age  of  Ivan  the  Terrible,  the  champion  of  Russian 
consolidation,  coincides  with  the  period  of  Elizabeth 


314  MODERN  CHURCH  HISTORY 

of  England  and  Henry  IV  of  France.  While  in 
western  Europe  the  taste  for  exact  theological  for- 
mulas was  being  gratified  by  the  Council  of  Trent  and 
in  the  countless  Lutheran  and  Reformed  confessions, 
the  Russian  Church,  isolated  as  it  was,  did  not  escape 
this  influence.  Indeed,  Anglicans  in  their  satisfac- 
tion with  the  Thirty-nine  Articles  mayjenvy  the  Rus- 
sian Church,  because  its  synod  of  155 1  published  a 
Book  of  a  Hundred  Chapters  prescribing  rules  of  dis- 
cipline and  reform.  Foreign  influences  of  a  direct 
kind  were  resisted  with  an  aggressiveness  that  recalls 
the  national  stand  taken  by  Tudor  England,  a  trait 
which  comes  out  plainly  when  attempts  were  made  by 
the  Jesuits  to  introduce  a  pro-papal  movement  in  the 
immediate  territory  of  the  grand  dukes.  Roman 
supremacy  might  have  been  introduced  without  the 
enforcement  of  Latin  customs  and  ritual. 

In  1589  an  independent  patriarch  of  Russia  was 
consecrated  to  enable  Moscow  to  take  its  place  along 
with  the  three  historic  eastern  patriarchal  sees  with 
no  thinly  veiled  intention  that  the  original  number 
lessened  by  the  defection  of  Rome  might  be  restored. 
The  plan  for  a  time  worked  well  under  the  early 
Romanoffs,  who  were  careful  to  see  that  the  occupant 
of  the  patriarchal  throne  was  willing  to  cooperate 
with  the  governing  power  in  the  State.  New  influ- 
ences were  brought  to  bear  upon  the  Russian  Church: 
western  methods  of  theological  thought  began  to  be 
appreciated  and  used  in  a  way  that  stimulated  discus- 
sion.    Peter  Mogila,  who  had  studied  at  the  Sorbonne 


DIVIDED  CHRISTENDOM  IN  MODERN  TIMES     315 

and  was  later  Metropolitan  of  Kief,  prepared  a  con- 
fession of  the  Orthodox  Faith  which  was  later  accepted 
as  authoritative  by  the  Synod  of  Bethlehem  on  the 
occasion  of  the  famous  dispute  in  regard  to  the  Eu- 
charistic  doctrine  of  the  Eastern  Church  (1672).  In 
Russia  itself  the  commanding  ecclesiastical  figure  of 
the  seventeenth  century  was  the  patriarch  Nicon,  who 
went  to  work  with  impartial  thoroughness  to  intro- 
duce discipline  and  order  among  the  clergy.  A  Greek 
by  birth  and  training,  it  is  not  surprising  that  he  took 
as  his  model  the  church  administration  of  Constanti- 
nople. All  went  well  until  the  service  books  were 
cleared  of  traditional  errors.  Nicon  cared  as  little  for 
prejudices  as  Laud,  with  the  result  that  over  questions 
of  such  really  subordinate  importance  as  service  book 
revision  and  minor  ceremonial  acts,  a  serious  and  en- 
during schism  destroyed  the  religious  unity  of  the 
country.  Nicon's  reforms  were  accepted,  but  he  fell 
a  victim  to  the  dislike  his  domineering  temper  had 
created  in  the  governing  classes,  passing  his  closing 
years  in  a  monastery. 

It  was  this  example  of  patriarchal  autocracy  that 
induced  Peter  the  Great  to  abolish  the  Moscow  Patri- 
archate and  substitute  for  it  a  Holy  Governing  Synod 
where  no  one  individual  prelate  could  withstand  the 
will  of  the  Czar,  who  was  himself  represented  by  an 
oiBcial  procurator  appointed  to  validate  the  acts  and 
decrees  of  the  clerical  members.  The  scheme  of  Peter 
the  Great  has  demonstrated  the  accuracy  of  the  Czar's 
forecast,  though  the  reason  given  by  him  that  the  gov- 


316  MODERN  CHURCH  HISTORY 

ernment  by  many  is  less  liable  to  error  than  a  mon- 
archical government,  must  be  regarded  as  hardly  an 
accepted  truism  in  Russian  secular  life.  Since  the 
eighteenth  century  the  occidentalizing  of  Russia  has 
in  no  way  signified  that  the  National  Church  has  lost 
its  hold  upon  the  people,  nor  does  it  mean  that  there 
has  been  felt  any  need  to  modify  its  doctrinal  position 
inherited  from  its  early  associations  with  the  Greek- 
speaking  world.  Conservatism  prevails,  as  it  might 
be  expected  to  prevail  among  a  population  almost  en- 
tirely occupied  with  agricultural  pursuits,  carried  on 
in  a  structure  of  society  still  primitively  ordered. 

With  the  rivalry  of  the  Great  Powers  under  a  tense 
system  of  armed  peace  the  deep-rooted  attachment  to 
nationality  in  all  its  forms  has  contributed  to  preserve 
the  integrity  of  the  Church,  even  though  in  the  re- 
stricted group  who  appreciate  and  who  produce  the 
masterpieces  of  Russian  modern  literature  there  are 
strong  anti-clerical  sympathies.  In  the  higher  clergy 
education  has  advanced,  spurred  by  the  desire  to  give 
the  representatives  of  the  Church  a  position  where 
scholarship  can  count  in  the  contact  with  western 
thought.  In  its  attitude  towards  the  Roman  Com- 
munion this  same  self-conscious  strength  has  done 
more  than  resist  advances  for  an  understanding  based 
solely  on  the  sentiment  of  historical  continuity:  many 
adherents  of  the  Uniat  compromise,  which  accepts 
papal  autonomy  under  reservations  of  states  rights  as 
to  language  and  ritual,  have  been  restored  to  the 
communion  of  the  Orthodox  Church. 


DIVIDED  CHRISTENDOM  IN  MODERN  TIMES     317 

That  the  strength  of  Russian  Christianity  cannot 
be  explained  by  insisting  on  the  superficial  advan- 
tages secured  by  state  connection  is  evident  when 
the  record  of  Russian  missions  in  the  nineteenth 
century  is  brought  under  review.  Russian  national 
expansion  in  Eastern  Asia  dates  from  the  reign  of 
Ivan  the  Terrible.  By  1697,  i-^-  ^  little  more  than 
a  century  after  Ivan's  death,  territories  eight  or  ten 
times  as  large  as  Russia  had  been  annexed  to  the 
Empire.  This  immense  territory  offered  serious 
problems  to  the  extension  of  the  Christian  relig- 
ion. The  native  tribes  were  different  in  language, 
religious  beliefs,  and  in  racial  origin.  They  were 
scattered  in  small  isolated  groups  over  lands  diffi- 
cult of  access.  Philotheus,  Metropolitan  of  Tobolsk 
from  1702  to  1727,  had  a  diocese  of  300,000  square 
miles  in  which  there  were  but  160  churches.  It  is 
estimated  that  under  his  directions  between  forty 
and  fifty  thousand  natives  were  converted  to  Chris- 
tianity. Most  of  the  missionary  work  at  this  period 
was  in  the  hands  of  monastic  communities,  the  mem- 
bers of  which  were  examples  of  zeal,  but  only  a  few 
showed  originality  in  dealing  with  the  complexities 
due  to  the  social  and  racial  traditions  of  the  Siberian 
tribes.  Crude  types  of  paganism  flourished,  while 
some  tribes  had  advanced  to  the  level  of  Lamaism 
and  Mohammedanism. 

In  the  nineteenth  century  systematic  work  on  a 
large  scale  was  perfected  and  has  been  carried  out. 
Schools  have  been  established,  but  the  principle  of 


318  MODERN  CHURCH  HISTOR  V 

racial  integrity  has  been  carefully  preserved,  though 
through  the  fostering  of  the  native  languages  in  which 
religious  and  secular  instruction  has  been  given,  Ma- 
carius'  mission  among  the  pagan  Altai  shows  how  suc- 
cessful as  a  principle  missionary  conservation  can  be 
made.  Out  of  the  45,000  native  inhabitants,  25,000 
are  already  Christian.  Among  the  Tartars  who  had 
accepted  only  a  nominal  form  of  Christianity  while 
practically  remaining  Moslems,  Ilminski  (d.  1891) 
achieved  remarkable  results  by  making  a  careful  study 
of  their  racial  and  linguistic  peculiarities.  By  his 
painstaking  labor  native  teachers  have  been  trained 
for  missionary  schools,  while  a  native  clergy  has 
been  organized  to  do  pastoral  work  in  the  village 
churches. 

Kazan  is  an  important  centre  of  missionary  propa- 
ganda; from  it  have  come  translations  of  religious 
books  in  twenty  native  languages,  while  in  the  Kazan 
Ecclesiatical  Academy  special  courses  lasting  two 
years  are  offered  to  those  who  wish  to  devote  them- 
selves to  missionary  work.  All  missionary  direction 
is  in  the  hands  of  the  Orthodox  Missionary  Society. 
Its  statistical  records  (1870-1899)  show  124,204  bap- 
tisms administered  in  a  period  of  thirty  years,  al- 
though the  amount  contributed  annually — a  specimen 
year  (1899)  during  the  period  gives  $125,00  —  is  not 
large  according  to  occidental  standards.  The  Russian 
Church  does  important  work  beyond  the  confines  of 
the  Empire,  notably  in  Japan,  but  its  sphere  at  home 
virtually  demands  its  direct  attention.    According  to 


DIVIDED  CHRISTENDOM  IN  MODERN  TIMES    319 

the  last  available  statistics,  within  the  territorial 
bounds  under  its  administration  are  fourteen  million 
Moslems,  four  hundred  and  thirty  thousand  Bud- 
dhists,^ and  nearly  three  hundred  thousand  adherents 
of  paganism ;  the  orthodox  population  of  the  Empire 
itself  is  nealy  ninety  millions. 


BIBLIOGRAPHY 


GENERAL  WORKS 

Benigni :  Storia  sociale  della  chiesa. 

Bernheim,  E. :  Lehrbuch  der  historischen  methode. 

Cabrol,  F. :  Dictionnaire  de  I'archdologie  Chrdtienne. 

Cambridge  Mediaeval  History. 

Carlyle,  R.  R.,  and  Carlyle,  A.  J. :  A  History  of  Mediaeval 
Political  Theory  in  the  West. 

Dolhnger:  Akademische  Vortrage  (Eng.  trans.). 

Dunbar,  A.  B.  S. :  Dictionary  of  Saintly  Women. 

Ebert :  Allg  Geschichte  der  Litteratur  im  Mittelalter. 

Ficker,  J. :  Forschungen  zur  Reichs  und  Rechtsgeschichte 
Italiens. 

Freeman :  Historical  Essays. 

Gee  and  Hardy :  Documents  illustrative  of  English  Church 
History. 

Gregorovius  :  Geschichte  der  Stadt  Rom  (Eng.  trans,  by  Bell) . 

Harnack:  Dogmen  Geschichte  (Eng.  trans.). 

Hauck-Herzog :  Real  encyclopasdie  fiir  Protestantische  Theo- 
logie  (abridged  Eng.  trans.). 

Hauck :  Kirchengeschichte  Deutschlands. 

Hastings :  Encyclopaedia  of  Religion  and  Ethics. 

Hefele,  C.  S. :  Konzilien  Geschichte. 

Hergenrother,  J.  A.  G. :  Kirchengeschichte  (ed.  Kirsch,  J.  P.). 

Heussi,  K. :  Kompendium  der  Kirchengeschichte. 

Heussi  und  Mulert :  Altas  zur  Kirchengeschichte. 

Hinneberg,  P. :  Kultur  der  Gegenwart ;  Geschichte  der  Christ- 
lichen  Religion  (by  Miiller,  Ehrhard  and  Troeltsch). 

Hutton,  W.  H.  (editor)  :  The  Church  Universal. 

Jaffd :  Regesta  Pontificum. 

Kehr,  P.  F. :  Regesta  Pontificum  Romanorum. 

Kriiger,  M.  G. :  Handbuch  der  Kirchengeschichte. 

Lavisse,  E. :  Histoire  de  France. 


BIBLIOGRAPHY  321 


Manirius,  Max :  Geschichte  der  Lateinischen  Litteratur  des 
Mittelalters. 

Mirbt,  C. :  Quellen  zur  Geschichte  des  Papsttums. 

Moller,  W. :  Lehrbuch  der  Kirchengeschichte  (new  ed.  by  von 
Schubert  u.  Kawerau) . 

Mourret,  F. :  Histoire  Gdn^rale  de  I'figlise. 

Olland,  S.  L. :  Dictionary  of  English  Church  History. 

Plummer,  A.,  and  Gee,  H.,  and  others :  Handbooks  of  English 
Church  History. 

Pohtical  History  of  England  (ed.  by  Hunt). 

Potthast,  A. :  BibHoteca  Historica  Medii  ^vi. 

Ranke :  Weltgeschichte. 

Religion  in  Geschichte  und  Gegenwart. 

Roman  Catholic  Encyclopaedia  (Robert  Appleton,  N.  Y.). 

Ruffini :  Religious  Liberty. 

Smet,  de  C. :  Introductio  ad  Historiam  Ecclesiasticam. 

Stephens  and  Hunt  (editors)  :  History  of  the  English  Church- 

Stubbs :  Lectures  on  Mediaeval  and  Modern  History. 

Thomassinus,  L. :  Vetus  et  Nova  Disciplina. 

CHAPTER  I 

Agnellus :  Liber  Pontificalis  Ecclesiae  Ravennatis  (ed.  Holder- 
Egger) . 

Alivisatos :  Die  Kirchliche  Gestzgebung  des  Kaisers  Justin- 
ian L 

Berr :  Die  Kirche  gegenuber  Gewaltthaten  von  Laien  (from 
Merovingian  times). 

Boundinhon,  B.  A.:  Sur  I'histoire  de  la  penitence  (Revue 
d'histoire  et  de  litt^rature  religieuse  ii,  1897). 

Br^haut,  E. :  Encyclopedist  of  the  Dark  Ages,  Isidore  of  Se- 
ville. 

Bright,  W. :  Chapters  on  Early  English  Church  History. 

Bury  :  St.  Patrick. 

Bury :  Later  Roman  Empire. 

Crivellucci :  Storia  delle  Relazioni  tra  lo  Stato  e  la  Chiesa. 

Duchesne,  L. :  Vigile  et  Pdlage :  Rev  Questions  Historiques 
1884. 

Duchesne,  L. :  Christian  Worship. 

Duchesne :  Liber  PontificaHs. 

22 


322  CHURCH  HIS  TOR  V 

Diehl,  Ch. :  Justinien, 

Dudden,  F.  G. :  Gregory  the  Great. 

Freeman:  Western  Europe  in  the  Fifth  Century. 

Gams,  P.  G. :  Kirchengeschichte  Spaniens. 

Gelzer,  H. :  Byzantinische  Kulturgeschichte. 

Gougaud,  L. :  Les  Chretientes  Celtiques. 

Gregory  of  Tours  ;  German  translation  by  Helhnan,  S. ;  Latin 
text  by  Omont. 

Grisar,  H. :  Geschichte  Roms  und  der  Papste  im  Mittelalter 
(Eng.  trans.). 

Gundlach,  W.:  Die  Entstehung  des  Kirchenstaates. 

Hartmann,  L.  M. :  Ein  Kapital  vom  Spatantiken  und  fruh- 
mittelalterlichen  Staate ;  Geschichte  Italiens ;  Der  untergang 
der  Antiken  Welt. 

Hodgkin :  Italy  and  Her  Invaders. 

Holmes,  T.  S. :  Origin  and  Development  of  the  Christian 
Church  in  Gaul  during  the  first  six  centuries. 

Howarth,  H.  H. :  Gregory  the  Great,  and  Birth  of  the  English 
Church. 

Huart,  C. :  Histoire  des  Arabes. 

Jonas :  Vita  Columbani. 

Joyce,  P.  W. :  Social  History  of  Ancient  Ireland. 

Kurth,  G. :  Clovis, 

Labourt,  J. :  Le  Christianisme  dans  I'Empire  Perse  sous  la 
Dynastie  Sassanide. 

Lane-Pool,  S.:  Islam. 

Leclercq :  L'Espagne  Chretienne. 

Levison,  W. :  Die  Iren  und  die  Frankische  ;  Kirche  Hist.  Zeits- 
chrift,  191 2. 

Mabillon:  Annales  Ord.  S.  Benedicti ;  Acta  Sanctorum  O.  S.  B. 

Macler,  F. :  Histoire  d'Heraclius  par  I'fivdque  Sebeos. 

Maguin:  L'figlise  Visegothique  au  VII  Siecle. 

Malfatti,  B. :  Imperatori  e  Pape. 

Margoliuth :  Mohammed. 

Martroye,  F. :  L'Occident  a  I'fipoque  Byzantine. 

Miiller,  A. :  Islam  im  Morgen  und  Abendland. 

Norden,  W. :  Papsttum  und  Byzanz. 

Plummer,  C. :  Vitae  Sanctorum  Hiberniae. 


BIBLIOGRAPHY  323 

Rauschen,  B.  G. :  Eucharistie  und  Busskrament  in  den  erster 
sechs  Jahrhunderten  der  Kirche. 

Savio,  F. :  Gli  Antichi  Vescovi  d'ltalia  dalle  Origini  al  1300. 

Sesan :  Kirche  und  Staat  im  Romisch  Byzantinischen  Reiche. 

Stuhlfath :  Gregor  I  der  Grosse,  sein  Leben  bis  zu  seiner 
Wahl  zum  Papste. 

Teano  Principe  di :  Annali  d'Islam,  and  Cronographia  (a  con- 
tinuation of  the  Annali) . 

Tarducci :  Storia  di  San  Gregoro  Magno  e  del  suo  tempo. 

Tillemont :  Memoires  pour  servir  a  I'histoire  ficclesiastique. 

Todd:  Ireland  and  the  Celtic  Church. 

Zimmer :  The  Celtic  Church,  art  in  Hauck-Herzog  (trans,  by 
Miss  Meyer). 

CHAPTER  II 

Bonneau,  A. :  La  Donation  de  Constantine  (containing  Lauren- 
tius  Valla's  treatise) . 

Bowker,  A. :  Alfred  the  Great. 

Brdhier,  L. :  Le  Schisme  Oriental. 

Bubnov,  N. :  Gerberti  postia  Silvestri  II  Papce,  Opera  Mathe- 
matica. 

Bury,  J.  B. :  History  of  the  Eastern  Roman  Empire  from  the 
Fall  of  Irene  to  the  Accession  of  Basil  I. 

Crivellucci,  A. :  Le  Origini  dello  Stato  della  Chiesa. 

Duchesne :  Les  Premiers  Temps  de  I'fitat  Pontifical. 

Duchesne,  L. :  Autonomies  ficcldsiastiques. 

Dollinger:  Papst  Fabeln  des  Mittelalters  (Eng.  trans.). 

Freeman  :  Western  Europe  in  the  Eighth  Century  and  Onward. 

Gardner,  A. :  Studies  in  John  the  Scot ;  Theodore  of  Studium. 

Gaskoin,  C.  J.  B. :  Alcuin. 

Greinacher,  A. :  Die  Anschauungen  des  Papstes  Nikolaus  I 
uber  die  Verhaltniss  von  Staat  u.  Kirche. 

Hatch,  E. :  Growth  of  Church  Institutions. 

Hergenrother,  J. ;  Photius. 

Hutton,  W.  H.:  English  Saints  (Bampton  Lectures,  1903). 

Kampers,  F. :  Karl  der  Grosse. 

Kovalevski :  Okonomische  Entwickelung  Europas. 

Krumbacher,  K. :  Byzantinesche  Literaturgeschichte. 

Kurth,  G. :  Notger  de  Liege  et  la  Civilization  au  Xieme  Siecle. 


324  CHURCH  HISTORY 

Kurth,  G. :  Saint  Boniface. 

Maitre,  L. :  Les  ficoles  fipiscopales  et  Monastiques. 

Mullinger,  J.  B. :  The  Schools  of  Charles  the  Great  and  the 
Restoration  of  Education  in  the  Ninth  Century. 

Plummer,  C. :  Life  and  Times  of  Alfred  the  Great. 

Poupardin,  M.  R. :  La  Vie  de  Saint  Didier. 

Searle,  W.  G. :  Anglo-Saxon  Bishops,  Kings  and  Nobles. 

Simson,  B. :  Die  Entstehung  der  Pseudoisidorischen  Falsch- 
ungen. 

Stevenson,  W,  H.:  Asser's  Life  of  King  Alfred. 

Taylor,  H.  O. :  Classical  Heritage  of  the  Middle  Ages. 

Voght,  A. :  Basile  I,  Empereur  de  Byzance  et  la  Civilisation 
Byzantine  au  fin  du  IX  Si^cle. 

West,  A.  F. :  Alcuin  and  the  Rise  of  the  Christian  Schools. 

Zoepf,  L. :  Das  Heiligenleben  im  lo  Jahrhundert. 

CHAPTER  III 

Boehmer,  H. :  Kirche  und  Staat  in  England  und  in  der  Nor- 
mandie. 

Chalandon,  F.:  Histoire  de  la  Domination  Normande  en 
Italie  et  en  Sicile. 

Dmitrewski,  von :  Die  Christliche  Freiwillige  Armut  vom 
XJrsprung  der  Kirche  bis  zum  12  Jahrhundert. 

Dolhnger:  Das  Papstthum. 

Drehmann,  S. :  Papst  Leo  IX  u.  die  Simonie  (Goetz  Beitrage). 

Drehmann :  Papst  Leo  IX  u.  die  Simonie. 

Dresdner,  A. :  Kultur  u.  Sittengeschichte  der  Italienischen 
Geistlichkeit  im  10  u.  11  Jahrhundert. 

Duff,  Nora  :  Matilda  of  Tuscany. 

Eberhard,  A. :  Das  Mittelalter  u.  seine  Kirchliche  Entwicke- 
lung. 

Fisher,  H.  A.  L. :  The  Mediaeval  Empire. 

Ghellinck,  J.  de :  Le  Mouvement  Thdologique  du  XII  Siecle. 

Gierke,  O.:  Das  Deutsche  Genossenschaft  Recht. 

Hampe,  K. :  Deutscher  Kaisergeschichte  im  Zeitalter  der 
Salien  u.  Staufer. 

Hegel,  C. :  Geschichte  d  Stadteverfassung  von  Italien. 

Hiiffer,  G. :  Der  Heilige  Bernard  von  Clairvaux. 

Krehbiel,  E.  B. :  The  Interdict,  Its  History  and  Operation. 


BIBLIOGRAPHY  325 

Kugler :  Geschichte  d  Kreuzziige. 

Lane-Poole,  Stanley:  Life  of  Saladin. 

Liebermann,  F. :  Anselm  von  Canterbury  u.  Hugo  von  Lyon. 

Luchaire,  A. :  Histoire  des  Institutions  Monarchiques  de  la 
France. 

Maitland,  F.  W. :  Constitutional  History  of  England. 

Mann,  H.  K. :  History  of  Mediaeval  Papacy. 

Meyer,  E. :  Italienische  Verfassungsgechichte. 

Meyer  von  Knonau,  G.t   Jahrbucher  des  Deutschen  Reichs 
unter  Heinrich  IV  und  Heinrich  V. 

Mirbt,  C, :  Publizistik  im  Zeitalter  Gregors  VII. 

Palmarocchi :   L'Abbazia  di    Montecassino  e   la   Conquista 
Normanna. 

Prutz  :  Kulturgeschichte  der  Kreuzziige. 

Reichel,  O.  J. :  Rise  of  the  Parochial  System  in  England. 

Renter  :  Geschichte  d  Aufklarung  im  Mittelalter, 

Schreiber,  G.:  Kurie  u.  Kloster  im  12  Jahrhundert. 

Simonsfeld,   H.:   Jahrbiicher  des   Deutschen  Reiches  unter 
Freidrich  I. 

Stevenson,  W.  B. :  The  Crusaders  in  the  East. 

Stubbs,  W. :  Constitutional  History  of  England  ;  Introductions 
to  the  Rolls  Series.     (Complete  only  in  original  volumes.) 

Stuts,    U. :    Eigekirchenvermogen ;  in  Gierkefestschrift  (pp. 
1187-1268). 

Vacandard,  E. :  Vie  de  Saint  Bernard. 

Vinogradoff :  English  Society  in  the  Eleventh  Century. 

Voight,  F.  O.:  Die  Klosterpolitik  der  Salischen  Kaiser  und 
Konige. 

Violet,  P. :  Histoire  des  Institutions  PoUtiques  and  Admin- 
istratives  de  la  France. 

Werminghoff :  Verfassungsgeschichte  der  Deutschen  Kirche 
im  Mittelalter. 

Workman,  H.  B. :  Evolution  of  the  Monastic  Ideal. 

CHAPTER  IV 

AUshorn  :  Life  and  Times  of  Frederick  II. 
Baier,  H.  L. :  PapstHche  Provisionen  fur  niedere  Pfrunden  bis 
zum  Jahr  1304. 

Bateson,  Mary  :  Mediaeval  England. 


326  CHURCH  HISTORY 

Berger,  E. ;  St.  Louis  et  Innocent  IV. 

Biehringer  :  Kaiser  Friedrich  II. 

Brdhier,  L. ;  L'figlise  et  L'Orient  au  Moyen  Age ;  Les  Croi- 
sades. 

Cartellieri,  A. :  Philip  August. 

Coulton :  A  Mediaeval  Garner. 

Cuthbert :  St.  Francis  of  Assisi. 

Denifle,  H,:  Die  Universtaten  des  Mittelalters. 

Dobiache  Rojdesvendky  Olga  ;  La  Vie  Paroissiale  en  France 
au  XIII  Siecle. 

Dollinger :  Beitrage  zur  Sektengeschichte. 

Dowden,  J. :  Mediaeval  Church  in  Scotland ;  The  Bishops  of 
Scotland. 

Endres,  J.  A. :  Thomas  von  Aquin. 

Eubel,  C. :  Hierarchia  Catholica  Medii  ^vi. 

Folz,  A. :  Kaiser  Friedrich  II  u.  Papst  Innozenz  IV. 

Frohschammer,  S. :  Die  Philosophie  des  Thomas  von  Aquino. 

Gebhart,  E. :  ItaHe  Mystique. 

Gierke,  O. :  Political  Theories  of  the  Middle  Ages  (trans,  by 
Maitland,  F.  W.). 

Goetz,  W. :    Die  Quellen  zur  Geschichte  des  St.  Franz  von 
Assisi. 

Goller,  E. :  Die  Einnahmen  der  ApostoHschen  Kammer  under 
Johann  XXII ;  Der  Liber  Taxarum  der  Papstlichen  Kammer. 

Gordon  :  Innocent  the  Great. 

Giitschow,  E.:  Innozenz  III  und  England. 

Hampe,  K. :  Kaiser  Friedrich  II. 

Haurdau:  Histoire  de  la  Philosophie  Scholastique. 

Hefele :  Die  Bettelorden  und  das  Rehgiose  Volksleben  Ober 
und  Mittel  Italiens  im  13  Jahrhundert. 

Jorgensen,  S. :  St.  Francis  of  Assisi. 

Knox,  W.  F.:  The  Court  of  a  Saint  (Louis  IX). 

Lea,  H.  E. :  A  History  of  the  Inquisition  of  the  Middle  Ages 
(in  German  translation  with  new  material  by  Hansen,  Jos.). 

Ledger  book  of  Vale  Royal  Abbey  (Lancashire  and  Cheshire 
Record  Society). 

Luchaire,  A. :  Innocent  III ;  La  Socidte  Frangaise  au  temps 
de  Phillippe  Auguste. 

Maitland,  F.  W. :  Canon  Law  in  the  Church  of  England. 


BIBLIOGRAPHY  Zll 


Michael,  E. :  Geschichte  des  Deutschen  Volkes  vom  13  Jah- 
rhundert ;  Salimbene  u.  seine  Chronik. 

Mollat,  G. :  Les  Popes  d'Avignon  1305-1378. 

Moore,  E. :  Studies  in  Dante. 

Nitzch:  Scholastische  Theologie  (Hauck-Herzog). 

Pierson  :  Die  Katholischen  Armen. 

Poole,  R.  L. :  Illustrations  of  the  History  of  Mediaeval 
Thought. 

Renan,  E. :  Averroes  et  L'Averroisme. 

Rodocanachi,  E.:  Les  Institutions  Communales  de  Rome 
sous  la  Papautd. 

Sabatier,  P. :  Frangois  d'Assise   (Eng.  trans.). 

Salimbene,  ed.  by  Holder-Egger  (in  Vol.  XXXII  Monumenta 
GermaniccE  Historicce :  Scriptores). 

Samaran,  C,  and  Mollat,  G.:  La  Fiscalite  Pontificale  en  France 
au  XIV  Si^cle. 

Schneider,  G. :  Die  Finanziellen  Beziehungen  der  Florentin- 
ischen  Bankiers  zur  Kirche  von  1285  bis  1304. 

Schnurer,  G.:  Franz  von  Assisi. 

Sommerlad,  Th. :  Die  Wirtschaftl  Tatigkeit  der  Kirche  in 
Deutschland. 

Stevenson,  F.  S. :  Life  of  Grosseteste. 

Taylor,  H.  O. :  The  Mediaeval  Mind. 

Tocco,  F.:  Studii  Francescani ;  L'Eresia  nel  Medio  Evo. 

Vaughan,  R.  B. :  St.  Thomas  of  Aquin,  His  Life  and  Labours. 

Villehardouin  :  Trans,  by  F.  T.  Marzials  (Everyman's  Library). 

Werminghoff,  A. :  National  Kirchliche  Bestreburgen  im 
Deutschen  Mittelalter  ;    Stutz  Abhandlungen. 

Woker,  Ph. :  Finanzwesen  der  Papste. 

CHAPTER  V 

Balthasar :  Geschichte  des  Armutstreites  im  Franziskaner 
Orden  bis  zum  Konzil  von  Vienne. 

Bouillon,  E. :  La  Politique  Pontificale  et  le  Retour  du  Saint 
Si^ge  k  Rome  en  1376. 

Boulting,  W. :  /Eneas  Silvius. 

Browning,  O. :  Guelphs  and  Ghibellines. 

Burckhardt:  Kultur  d  Renaissance  (Eng.  trans.). 


328  CHURCH  HIS  TOR  V 

Cox,  C. :  The  Sanctuaries  and  Sanctuary  Seekers  of  Mediae- 
val England. 

Creighton,  M. :  History  of  the  Papacy. 

Eckstein,  A. :  Zur  Finanzlage  Felix  V  und  des  Easier  Konzils. 

Erler :  Dietrich  von  Nieheim. 

Finke :  Papstum  und  Untergang  des  Templerordens. 

Flavigny,  de,  C. :  Sainte  Brigitte  de  Suede. 

Fueter,  E. :  Religion  und  Kirche  in  England  im  Funfzenrter 
Jahrhundert. 

Gardner,  E.  G. :   Saint  Catherine  of  Siena. 

Goldast :  Monarchia  Sancti  Imperii. 

Grabmann,  A.  L. :  Die  Geschschte  der  Scholastischen 
Methode. 

Haller,  J. :  Papsttum  und  Kirchenreform. 

Hansen,  J. :  Zauberwahn,  Inquisition  und  Hexen  Prozesse  im 
Mittelalter. 

Herzfeld,  Marie :  Das  Zeitalter  der  Renaissance. 

Holtzmann,  R. :  Wilhelm  von  Nogaret. 

Howell,  A.  G.  F. :  S.  Bernardino  of  Siena. 

Imbart  de  la  Tour :  Les  Origines  de  la  R^forme. 

Jorga  :  Geschichte  d  Osmanischen  Reiches. 

Kitts,  E.  J. :  In  the  Days  of  the  Councils :  a  Sketch  of  the  Life 
and  Times  of  Baldassare  Cossa. 

Koerting,  G. :  Petrarcas  Leben  und  Werke. 

Lang,  A. :  The  Maid  of  France. 

Lazaras  :  Das  Easier  Konzil. 

Lucas,  H.:  Fra  Girolamo  Savonarola. 

Lumsden,  C.  B. :  The  Dawn  of  Modern  England. 

Lutzow :  Life  and  Times  of  Master  John  Huss. 

Mackinnon,  James  :  History  of  Modern  Liberty. 

Mathew  :  Pope  Alexander  VI. 

Murray,  T.  D. :  Jeanne  d'Arc,  Maid  of  Orleans. 

Palacky :    Geschichte  Eohmens. 

Pastor,  L. :  Geschichte  der  Papste. 

Richemont,  de :  Jeanne  D'Arc  d'apres  les  Documents  Con- 
temporains. 

Schafer,  K.  H.:  Die  Ausgaben  der  Apostolischen  Kammer 
unter  Johann  XXII. 

Schnitzer :  Savonarola  im  Streite  mit  Seinem  Orden  und  Sei- 


BIBLIOGRAPHY  329 

nem  Kloster ;  Quellen  und  Forschungen  zur  Geschichte  Savon- 
arolas. 

Seeberg,  R. :  Die  Theologie  des  J.  Duns  Scotus. 

Schulte,  A.:  Die  Fugger  in  Rom,  1495-1523. 

Stutz,  U. :  Kirchenrechtliche  Abhandlungen,  Vols.  30,  31  ;  also 
vols.  I  and  2  on  Papal  Finance. 

Sulv^s  :  Papstliche  Wahlkapitulationen  u.  Machtbestrebungen 
des  Kardinalats. 

Trevelyan,  G.  M. :  England  in  the  Age  of  Wycliffe. 

Valois,  N.:  La  Crise  Religieuse  des  XV  Si^cle  ;  La  France 
et  le  Grand  Schisme  D 'Occident;  Le  Pape  et  le  Concile  (cf. 
Historiche  Zeitschrift,  Vol.  no,  p.  338). 

Villari,  P. :  Storia  di  Savonarola  (Eng.  trans.). 

Voight:  Pius  II  u  Sein  Zeitalter ;  Weiderbelebung  des  Klas- 
seschen  Altertums. 

Woodward,  W.  H.:  Cesare  Borgia. 

Woolf,  C.  N.  S. :  Bartolus  of  Sassoferrato,  His  Position  in  the 
History  of  Mediaeval  Political  Thought. 

Workman,  H.  B. :  The  Dawn  of  the  Reformation. 

Wylie,  J.  H. :  The  Council  of  Constance. 

CHAPTER  VI 

Acton,  Lord  :  Lectures  on  Modern  History  ;  History  of  Free- 
dom ;  Historical  Essays  and  Studies. 

Allen,  P.  S. :  Age  of  Erasmus. 

Armstrong,  E. :  The  Emperor  Charles  V;  French  Wars  of 
Religion,  their  Political  Aspects. 

Barge,  H. :  Andreas  Bodenstein  von  Karlstadt. 

Baumgarten,  H. :  Geschichte  Karls  V. 

Bayne,  C.  G. :  Anglo-Roman  Relations,  1558-1565. 

Birt :  Elizabethan  Religious  Settlement. 

Blennerhassett,  Lady  :  Maria  Stuart  Konigen  von  Schottland 
(French  trans.). 

Boehmer,  H. :  Luther  im  Lichte  der  Neueren  Forschung. 

Boehmer-Romundt,  H.:  Die  Jesuiten. 

Bossert,  A. :  Jean  Calvin. 

Bratli,  C. :  FiHp  II  af  Spanien  (French  trans.). 

Brieger :  Die  Reformation. 

Briggs,  C.  A. :  Theological  Symbolics. 


330  CHURCH  HIS  TOR  V 

Brosch,  W. :  Englische  Geschichte. 

Brown,  Hume  :  John  Knox. 

Brown,  P.  H. :  History  of  Scotland. 

Burrage,  C. :  The  Early  English  Dissenters  in  the  Light  of 
Recent  Research. 

Carriere,  M.:  Philosophische  Welt  Auschaung  der  Reforma 
tionszeit. 

Cheyney,  E.  P. :  A  History  of  England  from  the  Defeat  of 
the  Armada  to  the  Death  of  Elizabeth. 

Child,  G.  W. :  Church  and  State  under  the  Tudors. 

Cornelius,  C.  A. :  Historische  Arbeiten. 

Creighton.  M. :  Queen  Elizabeth. 

Denifle,  H. :  Luther  und  Luthertum, 

Dixon,  R.  W. :  Church  History  of  England. 

Doumergue,  E. :  Jean  Calvin. 

Ellinger,  G. :  Melancthon. 

Erasmus:  Selected  Letters  (Nichols,  F.  M.). 

Erasmi  Epistolas  (ed.  P.  S.  Allen). 

Filon :  Marie  Stuart. 

Frere  and  McC.  Kennedy :  Visitation  Articles  and  Injunc- 
tions of  the  Period  of  the  Reformation. 

Gairdner :  History  of  Lollardy  and  the  Reformation. 

Gasquet:  Henry  VIII  and  the  Monasteries. 

Gee,  H. :  The  EHzabethan  Clergy  and  the  Settlement  of  Re- 
ligion 

Gothein,  E. :  Ignatius  von  Loyola  und  die  Gegenreformation. 

Grisar,  H. :  Luther  (cf.  Theologische  Rundschau^  191 3,  pp. 
276  seq.,  Eng.  trans.). 

Hailie,  M.:  Reginald  Pole. 

Hauser,  H. :  Etudes  sur  la  Rdforme  Frangaise. 

Heidrich,  E. :  Diirer  und  die  Reformation. 

Heroes  of  the  Reformation  Series  (Putnam's). 

Hiibner,  von  :  Sixte  Quint  (Eng.  trans.). 

Hume,  M.  A.  S. :  Treason  and  Plot;  Philip  II;  Spain,  Its 
Greatness  and  Decay. 

Janssen,  J.:  Geschichte  des  Deutschen  Volks  (Eng.  trans., 
abridged). 

Kampschulte,  F.  W. :  Johann  Calvin,  seine  Kirche  u  sein 
Staat  in  Genf. 


BIBLIOGRAPHY  331 

Kidd,  B.  J. :  Documents  illustrative  of  the  Continental  Refor- 
mation. 

Kohler,  W. :  Grisars  Luther  in  Deutsche  Literaturzeitung, 
June  21-28,  1913. 

Lang,  A. :  History  of  Scotland. 

Lea:  History  of  the  Spanish  Inquisition. 

Lenz,  M. :  Leben  Luthers  ;  Kleine  Historische  Schriften. 

Lindeboom,  J. :  Erasmus,  Erasmus  Onderzoek  naar  zijne 
Theolcgie. 

Lindsay  :  History  of  the  Reformation. 

Lupton,  J.  H. :  Life  of  John  Colet. 

McGiffert,  A.  C. :  Life  of  Luther. 

Makower,  S. :  Die  Verfassung  der  Kirche  von  England  (Eng. 
trans.). 

Martin,  G. :  Gustave  Vasa  et  la  Reforme  en  Suede. 

Mathieson,  W.  L. :  Politics  and  Religion  in  Scotland,  1550- 
1695. 

Merkle,  S. :  Studien  zur  Geschichte  des  Konzils  von  Trient 
{Hist.  Jahrbuch.^  Vol.  31,  2  seq.). 

Meyer,  A. :  £tude  Critique  sur  les  Relations  d'firasme  et  de 
Luther. 

Meyer,  A.  O. :  England  und  die  KathoHsche  Kirche  unter  Eliz- 
abeth und  den  Stuarts. 

Miiller,  Karl :  Kirche,  Gemeinde  und  Obrigkeit. 

Mumby,  F.  A. :  Elizabeth  and  Mary  Stuart. 

Nisard,  D. :  Renaissance  et  Reforme. 

Paulus,  N. :  Protestantismus  und  Toleranz. 

Philipps,  G.  E.:  The  Extinction  of  the  Ancient  Hierarchy. 

Pollard,  A.  F.  P. :  Political  History  of  England  ;  England  un- 
der Protector  Somerset;  Henry  VI I L 

Prothero,  G.  W. :  Select  Statutes,  and  other  documents  bear- 
ing on  the  Reigns  of  Elizabeth  and  James  I. 

Ranke :  Franzosische  Geschichte ;  Englische  Geschichte 
(Eng.  trans.). 

Reusch,  F.  H. :  Der  Index  der  Verbotenen  Biicher. 

Reyburn,  H.  J. :  John  Calvin. 

Ritschl :  Geschichte  des  Pietismus. 

Rodocanachi,  E. :  Rome  au  temps  de  Jules  II  et  de  Leon  X. 


332  CHURCH  HISTORY 

Rose-Troup,  F, :  The  Western  Rebellion  of  1549. 

Savine,  A. :  English  Monasteries  on  the  Eve  of  the  Dissolu- 
tion. 

Seebohm,  Fr. :  The  Oxford  Reformers. 

Smith,  P. :  Life  and  Letters  of  Martin  Luther ;  Luther's  Cor- 
respondence. 

StaheHn,  R. :  Huldreich  Zwingli  sein  Leben  u.  Wirken. 

Susta,  J. :  Die  Romische  Curie  und  das  Konzil  von  Trient  unter 
Pius  IV. 

Taunton,  E.  L. :  Thomas  Wolsey ;  History  of  the  Jesuits  in 
England. 

Tresal,  J. :  Les  Origines  du  Schisme  Anglican. 

Usher,  R.  G. :  Reconstruction  of  the  English  Church. 

Vedder,  H.  C. :  The  Reformation  in  Germany. 

Ware,  S.  L. :  The  EHzabethan  Parish  in  Its  Ecclesiastical  and 
Financial  Aspects. 

Wemle,  P. :  Renaissance  und  Reformation. 

Zucker,  Markus  :  Albrecht  Diirer  in  Seinen  Briefen. 

CHAPTER  VII 

Addison,  D.  D.:  The  Clergy  in  American  Life  and  Letters. 

Acton,  Lord :  Lectures  on  the  French  Revolution. 

Adeney,  W.  F. :  The  Greek  and  Eastern  Churches. 

Allen  and  McClure:  History  of  the  Society  for  Promoting 
Christian  Knowledge. 

American  Church  History  Series  (N,  Y.). 

Balleine  :  History  of  the  EvangeHcal  Party. 

Benson,  A.  C. :  Life  of  Archbishop  Benson. 

Bradford,  Wm. :  History  of  Plimouth  Plantation. 

Birkbeck :  Russia  and  England  during  the  last  Fifty  Years. 

Bremond  :  Les  Ames  Religieuses  ;  Newman. 

Church :  Life  and  Letters  of  Dean  Church. 

Cobham,  C.  D. :  The  Patriarchs  of  Constantinople. 

Cross,  A.  L. :  The  Anglican  Episcopate  and  the  American 
Colonies. 

Dollinger:  Der  Papst  und  das  Konzil  (ed.  by  J.  Friedrich). 

Debidour,  A. :  L'Eglise  Catholique  et  I'fitat  sous  la  Troisieme 
Republique. 

Dennis,  J.  S.:  Christian  Missions  and  Social  Progress. 


BIBLIOGRAPHY  333 

Dezert,  du,  G.  D. :  L'figlise  et  I'fitat  en  France  depuis  I'fidit 
de  Nantes  Jusqu'  k  nos  Jours. 

Dowden,  E. :  Puritan  and  Anglican. 

Figgis,  J.  N. :  Divine  Right  of  Kings. 

Firth :  Oliver  Cromwell. 

Fortescue,  A. :  The  Orthodox  Eastern  Churches  ;  The  Lesser 
Eastern  Churches. 

Fouqueroy,  H. :  Histoire  de  la  Compagnie  de  Jesus  en  France 
des  Origines  k  la  Suppression. 

Franz,  H.:  Studien  zur  Kirchlichen  Reform  Josephs  II,  etc. 

Goyau,  G. :  L'Allemagne  Religieuse. 

Goetz,  L.  K. :  Staat  und  Kirche  in  Altrussland. 

Granderath  u  Kirsch  :  Geschichte  des  Vatikanischen  Konzils. 

Hausrath,  A. :  Richard  Rothe  und  Seine  Freunde. 

Heimbucher:  Die  Orden  u.  Kongregationen  der  Katholischen 
Kirche. 

Kissling,  J.  B. :  Geschichte  des  Kultur  Kampfes  im  Deutschen 
Reiches. 

Lathbury :  Correspondence  of  W.  E.  Gladstone  on  Church 
and  Rehgion. 

Launay  :  Histoire  Gen^rale  de  la  Societe  des  Missions  fitran- 
geres. 

Leger,  A. :  L'Angleterre  Religieuses  et  les  Origines  du  Meth- 
odisme  ;  Le  Jeunnesse  de  Wesley. 

Loth,  J.,  and  Verger  :  Memoires  de  I'Abb^  Baston. 

Lovett,  R. :  History  of  the  London  Missionary  Society. 

Mathiez,  A. :  Rome  et  le  Clerge  Frangais  sous  la  Constituante. 

Mirbt,  C. :  Geschichte  der  Katholischen  Kirche  von  der  Mitte 
des  1 8  Jahrhundert  bis  zum  Vatikanischen  Konzil. 

Nielsen  :  History  of  the  Papacy  in  the  XIX  Century. 

Nippold,  F. :  Handbuch  d  Neuesten  Kirchengeschichte. 

Overton  and  Relton :  The  English  Church  from  the  Acces- 
sion of  George  I  to  the  end  of  the  XVIII  Century. 

Paseve,  C.  F. :  Two  Hundred  Years  of  the  S.  P.  G. 

Pierling  :  La  Russie  et  le  Saint  Siege. 

Pisani :  L'figlise  de  Paris  et  la  Revolution. 

Plessis,  de,  J. :  History  of  Christian  Missions  in  South  Africa. 

Purcell :  Life  of  Cardinal  Manning. 

St.  Cyres,  Lord  :  F^nelon  ;  Pascal. 


334  CHURCH  HISTOR  Y 

Shaw,  W.  A. :  History  of  the  English  Church  during  the  Civil 
War  and  the  Commonwealth. 

Smirnoff,  E. :  Russian  Orthodox  Missions. 

Smith,  Russell:  Religious  Liberty  under  Charles  II  and 
James  II. 

Speer  :  Missions  and  Modern  History. 

Stephen,  Sir  James  :  Essays  in  Ecclesiastical  Biography. 

Stock,  Eugene  :  History  of  the  Church  Missionary  Society. 

Theiner :  Geschichte  d  Pontifikats  Klemens  XIV. 

Thureau-Dangin,  P. :  La  Renaissance  Catholique  en  Angle- 
terre  au  XIX  Siecle. 

Usher,  R.  G. :  Rise  and  Fall  of  the  High  Commission. 

Vigener,  F.:  Gallikanismus  und  Episkopalistische  Stromungen 
im  Vaticanum  und  Deutschen  Katholizismus  Zwischen  Tridenti- 
num  {Hist.  Zeit..,  Vol.  3,  p.  495) . 

Ward,  W. :  Life  of  Cardinal  Newman. 

Wameck,  S. :  The  Living  Forces  of  the  Gospel ;  History  of 
Protestant  Missions. 

Weber,  E. :  Die  Philosophische  Scholastik  des  Deutschen 
Protestantismus  im  Zeitalter  der  Orthodoxie. 

Wilberforce  :  Life  of  Bishop  Wilberforce. 

Winchester,  C.  T. :  John  Wesley. 

Workman,  H.  B. :  A  New  History  of  Methodism. 


INDEX 


Abelard,  loi,  102. 

Abyssinia,  7. 

Adalbert,  Archbishop,  89,  90 

Adoptionism,  47. 

Advertisements,  245. 

Acacius,  4. 

Agnellus,  20, 

Agobard,  60. 

Albert  the  Great,  148. 

Albornoz,  170. 

Alcuin,  47. 

Alfred  the  Great,  58. 

Alexander  II,  T]^  78. 

Alexander  III,  116,  119,  132 

Alexander  IV,  11,  160. 

Amalric  of  Bennes,  150. 

American  Christianity,  229- 
310. 

American  Colonies,  290,  291, 
292,  300. 

Anabaptists,  259. 

Andrewes,  Bishop,  265. 

Anne,  Queen,  270. 

Anselm,  84,  95,  100,  loi. 

Anskar,  49,  89. 

Anti-clericahsm,  283,  284,  285 

Anton,  295. 

Apostolic  Succession,  Doc- 
trine of,  264. 

Aquileia,  2. 

Aquinas,  148. 

Arians,  9,  10,  21. 

Aries,  3. 

Armenia,  7. 

Arnold,  Dr.,  373,  276. 

Arnold  of  Brescia,  113,  114. 

Amulf  of  Rheims,  65,  66. 

Aristotle,  147,  148. 

Articles,  the  Ten,  231,  232. 

Articles,  the  Six,  232,  234. 

Articles,  the  Forty-two,  236. 

Articles,  the  Thirty-nine,  241. 


Augsburg  Confession,  213. 
Augsburg,  Peace  of,  215. 
Augustine,  14. 
Augustinians,  142. 
Avignon,  163,  169,  170,  171. 

B 
Baptists,  302. 
Bardanes,  Jacob,  6. 
Barneveldt,  292. 
Bartholomew,  St.,  250. 
Basel,  Council  of,  178,  179. 
Beaton,  248. 

Beatrice  of  Tuscany,  74. 
Becket,  Thomas  k,  118,  119. 
Bede,  30. 

Beghines,  145,  246. 
Benedict  (of  Agnani),  49. 
Benedict  (of  Nursia),  27,  28. 
Benedict  IX,  69. 
Benedict  XIII,  172. 
Benedictines,  18. 
Benson,  Abp.,  277. 
Berengar,  94,  95. 
Bernard,  St.,  96,  97,  102,  112, 

114,  120,  123. 
Bernardino  of  Siena,  183. 
Boethius,  100. 
Bohme,  Jacob,  261. 
Bolsec,  223. 
Bonaventura,  148. 
Boniface,  St.,  40,  41,  42. 
Boniface  VIII,  162.  164,  165. 
Bossuet,  279. 
Bouvines,  128. 
Brandenburg,  289. 
Bridget,  St.,  170. 
Browne,  246. 
Brunhilde,  13. 
Bucer,  234. 
Bulgarians,  54,  55. 

C 
Cajetan,  203,  25S. 
Calvin,  219,  223,  250. 


336 


CHURCH  HISTORY 


Calvinism,  224,  225,  289,  292, 

309- 
Cambndge,  147. 
Canon  Law,  109,  157. 
Canossa,  81. 
Canute,  89. 
Capet,  Hugh,  6$. 
Capuchins,  296, 
Carmelites,  142, 
Cashel,  Synod  of,  121. 
Cassiodorus,  29. 
Catherine  of  Siena,  171. 
Celularius,  Michael,  91. 
Chapters,  Three,  5, 6, 18. 
Charles  of  Anjou,  153. 
Charles  II,  268. 
Charles  V,  195,  208,  210,  213, 

214,  216,  254. 
Charles  Martel,  31,  39,  41,  42. 
Charles  the  Great,  43,  44,  45, 

46,  47,  48. 
Christian  III,  252. 
Church  Missionary  Society, 

298. 
Chrodegang,  Bishop,  42. 
Cistercians,    97,  98,  99,  112, 

121,  122. 
Citeaux,  97. 

Civil  Constitution  of  the  Cler- 
gy, 281. 
Clairvaux,  97. 
Clement  V,  163,  164. 
Clement  VI,  171. 
Clement  VII,  212,  253. 
Clovis,  10. 
Cluny,  62. 
Colet,  227. 
Columbanus  of  Luxeuil  and 

Bobbio,  10,  27,  28. 
Columba,  9. 
Conceptualism,  loi. 
Concordat,  282. 
Confession,  25,  144,  145. 
Confraternities,  104,  105. 
Congregationalism,  267,  268, 

307- 
Conrad,  153. 
Constance,  Council  of,  173-74 


Constans  II,  35. 
Constantinian  Donation,  44, 

45,  76,  120,  189. 
Constantinople,  130. 
Cortenuova,  152. 
Cranmer,  Abp.,  232,  233,  236, 

238. 
Crescentii,  66. 
Cromwell,  Thomas,  229,  231. 

235- 
Crusades,  78,  92,  93,  94,  122, 

123,  124,  130,  131,  155. 
Culdees,  59. 
Curia,  no,  in,  112. 
Curial  System,  137,  139. 
Cyril,  54. 

D 
D'Ailly,  Peter,  172. 
Damiani,  69,  77. 
Deutz,  Ruprecht  von,  102, 
Dionysius  (pseudo-),7,  8,  60, 

148. 
Disestablishment,  278,  283. 
Dissenters,  268,  269. 
Divorce  (Queen  Catherine), 

228. 
Dolcino,  193,  194. 
Dominic,  St.,  141. 
Dominicans,  142,  145,  147. 
Duns  Scotus,  186,  187 
Dunstan,  65. 

E 

Eastern  Church,  90,  91,  92, 

123,  310.316. 
Eck,  202,  204,  207. 
Ecthesis,  35. 
Ecumenical  Council  (Fifth), 

6;  (Sixth),  36;  (Seventh),  39. 
Edessa,  123. 
Edward  VI,  234,  237. 
Edwards,  Jonathan,  302. 
Elizabeth,  Queen,  239,  242, 

243,  244,  245. 
Erasmus,  197,  198,  199. 
Erigena,  147,  150. 
Eugenius  II,  H2,  114. 
Eugenius  IV,  179. 


INDEX 


337 


Evangelical  Alliance,  295. 
Evangelical  Party,  272. 
Expectancies,  138. 


Farel,  221. 

Febronius,  280. 

Felix,  4, 

Fenelon,  279. 

Ferrer,  Vincent,  183. 

Feudalism,  51. 

Filioque,  47,  48. 

Finance,  papal,  82,  iii. 

Fiore,  Joachim  di,  149,  150, 

159,  160. 
Florence,  Act  of  Union  with 

East,  178,  179. 
Formosus,  57. 
Francis  of  Asissi,   140,    141, 

142,  i43»  145- 
Franciscans,    142,    145,    147, 

159,  169. 
Pranks,  295. 

Frederick  1, 114, 115, 119, 12s. 
Frederick  II,  127,   151,  152, 

French  Republic,  283. 
French  Revolution,  281. 
Fulbert  of  Chartres,  94. 


Galilean   Articles,   279,   282, 

287. 
Gandersheim,  66. 
Gardiner,  Bishop,  232. 
Gebhard,  Bishop  (Victor  II), 

72. 
Geneva,  Reformation  at,  221, 

224. 
Georgian  Period,  270,  272. 
Gerbert,  66. 
Gerson,  172. 
Gladstone,  266. 
Gottschalk,  60. 
Gratian,  109. 
Gregory  I,  10,  11,  12,  13,  14, 

15,  28,  29. 
Gregory  11,38,  40. 


Gregory  VI,  69. 

Gregory  VII    (Hildebrand), 

70,  79,  80,  81,  82,  83,  87,  95- 
Gregory  IX,  147,  157,  159. 
Gregory  XI,  170. 
Groot,  Gerhard,  184. 
Grosstete,  Robert,  158. 
Grotius,  292. 
Guiscard,  Robert,  73,  93. 
Gustavus  Adolphus  Society, 

295- 

H 

Hadrian  I,  44. 

Hadrian  II,  115. 

Hadrian  VI,  210,  253. 

Hamburg,  49,  88,  89. 

Hatfield,  Synod  of,  18. 

Henry  II,  67. 

Henry  III,  69,  70,  71,  73,  74- 

Henry  IV,  79,  80. 

Henry  V,  85. 

Henry  VI,  125,  126. 

Henry  I  (of  England),  84,  85. 

Henrv  II,  118,  119,  120,  121. 

Henry  VIII,  228-233. 

Henry  IV  (of  France),  251. 

Heraclius,  35. 

Heresy,  Punishment,  107, 108. 

Hincmar,  51,  53,  59. 

Hobart,  Bishop,  303. 

Honorius,  36. 

Hooper,  236. 

Hospitalers,  122. 

Hrabanus  Maurus,  59. 

Huguenots,  251. 

Humanism,  188,  189,  292. 

Humbert,  Cardinal,  75,  91. 

Humihati,  132,  133. 

Hungarians,  88. 

Huss,  177. 

Husssites,  192,  204. 

Hutten,  205,  211. 


Iconoclasm,  38,  39,  47,  48. 
Ignatius,  54,  55, 
Illyricum,  13. 

23 


338 


CHURCH  HISTORY 


Indulgences,    104,   144,   200, 

201,  202,  255. 
Infallibility,  287. 
Innocent  III,  125,  126,  127, 

128,  129,  130,  135,  137,  138, 

139,  140. 
Innocent  IV,  143,   144,   152, 

156. 
Inquisition,  154,  181. 
Interdict,  68,  80,  83. 
Interim,  215. 
Investiture,  75,  79,  84,  85,  86, 

87. 
lona,  17, 

Irene,  Empress,  39. 
Irish  Church,  9,  15, 16, 17,  19. 
Isidore  (of  Seville),  29. 
Islam,  31,  32,  33,  34. 

J 

James  I,  265. 

James  II,  268. 

Jansen,  279. 

Jerusalem,  93,  124. 

Jesuits,  257,  258,  280,  296,  297. 

Jews,  34. 

Joan  of  Arc,  184. 

John  I,  41, 

John  VIII,  55. 

John  XII,  64. 

John  XXII,  169. 

John  XXIII,  173. 

John  (of  England),  128. 

John  the  Scot,  60. 

Joseph  II,  280. 

Julius  II,  194. 

Julius  III,  254. 

Justinian  I,  i,  5,  7,  10,  11,  23. 

Justinian  II,  37. 


Karlstadt,  210. 

Kathari,  106,  107,  108. 

Katharists,  134,  135,  155,  193. 

Keble,  274. 

Kempen,  Thomas  von,  185. 

Kiev,  90. 

King,  Bishop,  277. 


Knox,  John,  248. 
Kulturicampf,  284. 


Landau,  Johann  of,  167. 
Land  System  (Germanic), 22, 

23- 
Lanfranc,  84,  94,  95. 
Langton,  Stephen,  128,  129. 
Las  Casas,  296. 
Lateran    Council,    131,   145, 

194. 
Laud,  265. 
Legates,  papal,  77. 
Legnano,  116. 
Leo  I,  3. 
Leo  III,  47. 
Leo  VIII,  64. 
Leo  IX,  70,  71,  72,  73,  91. 
Leo  X,  194,  195,  200,  207. 
Leo  of  Achrida,  91. 
Leo  the  Isaurian,  38. 
Leyden,  292. 
Leonine  City,  57. 
Liutprand,  20,  38. 
Lollards,  176,  177. 
Lombard,  Peter,  102. 
Lombards,  12,  13,  28,  36,  37, 

38,  44- 
London  Missisnary  Society, 

298. 
Loubet,  President,  283. 
Louis  the  Bavarian,  169. 
Louis  the  Pius,  50. 
Louis  IX  (Saint)  154,  158. 
Lothair,  11,  52. 
Loyola,  Ignatius,  251. 
Luther,    199-214,    218,    247, 

260. 
Lutheranism,   252,  253,   292, 

M 

Magna  Charta,  128,  129. 

Magyars,  56. 

Malachi,  120. 

Malleus  Maleficorum,  186, 

Manfred,  153. 

Marburg,  218. 


INDEX 


339 


Marionites,  36. 

Marprelate  Controversy,  246. 

Marriage,  Clerical,  58,  59,  67, 

68. 
Marsilius  of  Padua,  167. 
Martin  I,  36. 
Martin  V,  174. 
Martyr,  Peter,  234. 
Mary  de  Guise,  248. 
Mary,  Queen,  237,  239. 
Mary,   Queen    of    Scotland, 

242,  249. 
Maurice,  14,  276. 
Melancthon,  213. 
Mendicants,  152. 
Methodists,  302,  306,  307. 
Methodius,  53. 
Michael  III,  53,  54. 
Milan,  2,  3,  12. 
Missions,  33,  40,  45,  46, 49,  88, 

89,  90,  91, 122,  123,  156, 157, 

191,  296,  299. 
Modernism,  287,  288. 
Mohammed,  30. 
Monasteries,  Dissolution  of 

English,  231, 
Monophysites,  5,  6,  7,  8,  33, 

35'  36.  ,.  . 
Monothelitism,  36,  37. 
Montfort,  Simon  of,  135. 
Moravia,  54,  55. 
Moravians,  193. 
More,  Thomas,  227,  230. 
Mozarabic  Liturgy,  78. 
Miinster,  261. 
Mystics,  149. 

N 

Nantes,  Edict  of,  251. 
Navas  de  Tolosa,  130. 
Neri  Philip,  258. 
Nestorian  Church,  156. 
Nestorians,  32,  33. 
Newman,  274. 
Nicholas  I,  50,  52,  53,  54. 
Nicholas  II,  73,  76. 
Nicholas  V,  179,  180. 
Nilus,  64. 


Non-Jurors,  269. 
Nominalism,  100. 
Norbert  of  Xanten,  104. 
Normans,  72,  73,  86. 
Northmen,  56,  58. 
Northumberland,  236. 


Occam,  William  of,  187,  188. 

Odilo,  67. 

Olaf  (of  Norway),  89. 

Oratorians,  258. 

Organic  Laws,  282. 

Origen,  5,  7. 

Oswald,  15. 

Otto  the  Great,  63,  64. 

Otto  III,  65,66. 

Oxford,  147. 

Oxford  Movement,  273,  276. 


Pallium,  4,  12. 

Papal  Elections,  76. 

Paris,  146,  147. 

Parish,  24,  25. 

Parker,  241. 

Parma,  John  of,  159. 

Patrick,  8. 

Paul  111,254. 

Paul  IV,  239. 

Peasant  Revolt,  211. 

Pelagius,  6. 

Pelagius  II,  28. 

Penda,  15. 

Penitential   System,   25,    26, 

27,  103. 
Peter's  Pence,  in. 
Petrarch,  170,  189,  190. 
Philip  II  of  France,  129. 
Philip  le  Bel,  162,  165,  166. 
Philip  II  of  Spain,  215,  237, 

239,  242,  243. 
Phokas,  14. 
Photius,  54,  55- 
Pippm,  43. 

Pisa,  Council  of,  172. 
Pius  IV,  255. 
Pius  V,  242. 


340 


CHURCH  HISTORY 


Poland,  289. 

Pole,  Cardinal,  137,  239,  241. 
Polo,  Marco,  156. 
Pornocracy,  57,  58. 
Porree,  Gilbert  de  la,  102. 
Port  Royal,  279. 
Postulations,  138. 
Praemonstratensians,  89,  121. 
Pragmatic  Sanction,  181. 
Prayer  Book,  235,  236,  240, 
Prayer  Book   Revision,  301, 

304. 
Presbyterians,  267,  268,  290. 
Propaganda  Fide,  De,  296. 
Protestant,  212. 
Protestant  Episcopal,  301. 
Provisions,  138. 
Pseudo-Isidorian  Decretals, 

52,  53.  63,  83,  190. 
Puritanism,  265,  266,  267. 
Puritans,  244,  245,  246,  265. 
Pusey,  274. 

R 

Radbert,  59. 
Ranke,  266. 
Ratramn,  59. 
Ravenna.  2,  37,  38,  44. 
Raymond,    Count    of    Tou- 
louse, 135. 
Realism,  loi. 
Reccared,  9,  12, 
Reformed  Episcopal  Church, 

304- 
Regalian  rights,  63,  117. 
Religious  Orders,  288. 
Renaissance  Papacy,  180. 
Reservations,  no,  in. 
Restoration,  267. 
Rheims  Synod,  71. 
Ridley,  236,  238. 
Ritualism,  276,  277. 
Romuald,  64,  69. 
Roscellin    (of    Compiegne), 

100. 
Rothad  of  Soissons,  53. 
Rubric,  Ornaments,  240. 
Russian  Church,  191,312-316. 


St.  Maur,  Abby  of,  279. 
Sancho,  67. 
Saracens,  56,  57. 
Savonarola,  183,  184. 
Savoy  Conference,  267. 
Schism,  the  Great,  170-172. 
Scholasticism,   99,    100,    loi, 

102,  103. 
Seabury,  301. 
Servetus,  223. 
Sigismund,  Emperor,  173. 
Simons,  Menno,  261. 
Simony,  67,  68,  75. 
Siricius,  2. 
Society  for  the  Propagation 

of  the  Gospel,  298,  300. 
Somerset,  236. 
Spener,  295. 
Speyer,  Diet  of,  212. 
Spoliation  Right,  63. 
Stephen,  43. 
Strassburg,  Reformation  at, 

220. 
Swiss  Reformation,  217,  226. 
Symmachus,  3. 

T 

Taborites,  192. 

Taxation    (papal),    158,  161, 

168. 
Templars,  122,  164,  165. 
Temporal  Power,  43,  86,  286. 
Tetzel,  199,  202. 
Teutonic  Knights,  157. 
Theodelinda,  13. 
Theodore,  Abp.,  18,  25,  30. 
Theodoric  the  Ostrogoth,  4. 
Toleration  Act,  269. 
Tract  XC,  274. 
Trent,  254,  255,  256,  257. 
Truce  of  God,  68. 
Turner,  C.  H.,  i. 
Typus,  35. 

U 

Ultramontanism,  287. 
Unam  Sanctum,  162. 


INDEX 


341 


Uniformity  Act,  240,  268. 
Universities,  149,  148. 
Urban  VI,  171. 
Utraquists,  192. 

V 

Valla,  Laurentius,  189,  205. 
Vallombrosa,  69. 
Vasa,  Gustavus,  252. 
Vatican  Council  (1870),  287. 
Victor,   St.,   School  of,  102, 

103. 
Vienne,  Council  of,  165. 
Vigilius,  6,  1 1 . 
Visigoths,  34. 

W 

Walbert,  69. 
Waldensians,  132,  133,  134, 

i55>  193- 
Ward,  Wilfrid,  257. 
Wesley,  John,  271,  272. 
White,  Bishop,  301. 


Whitgift,  245. 

Wido,  77. 

Wilfrid,  17. 

William  of  Dijon,  91. 

William  of  Normandy,  78, 84. 

William  III,  270. 

Willibrord,  40. 

Wishart,  248, 

Witchcraft,  185,  186. 

Wladimir,  90, 

Wolsey,  229. 

Worms,  Concordat  of,  85, 86, 

US- 
Worms,  Diet  of,  209. 
Wyclif,  175,  176. 


Xavier,  296. 

Z 

Zacharias,  43. 

Zosimus,  3. 

Zwingli,2i6, 217,218, 219,  260. 


Date  Due 

--.   ^ 

( 

SIT    1  0    '/l}^ 

Mr  ft      *^ 

fl 

'  -■  -'-'  MQ 

jr 

Wr.  7  . 

f.  ■ 

DE  a    '52 

-.            ^gm 

«i 

' , ,  J 

tftg-  . 

»u».  ■■  .   ^i 

•>"  '  ^.^-TTj'S-*^ 

S*. 

f 

